Thursday, July 14, 2016

Character Name is a Badge of Honor

What is in a name? A person’s ancestry, a definition of character can be discovered.

So this has me thinking about my own name, Colleen Ryan Tews. My maiden name, Colleen Ryan McEuen. Let me break this down for you.

Colleen definition: Celtic origin for girl. Simple enough. I was named after my aunt Colleen. She was my uncle’s first wife. My parent’s loved her dearly.

My middle name, Ryan, was almost my first name. Why? Because my mother LOVED the soap opera Ryan’s Hope. I shit you not. I was named after a freaking soap opera.

For those keeping tracking you may have noticed that the lead character in Dream Prophet is named Rhianne Leto. And your thinking, “Wow, she named her MC after herself. Ego much.”. That is where you would be wrong. I grew up with a little girl across the street whose first name was Rhianne, spelled this way. I loved it. I promised her years ago I would use her name in a book.

Where did I get her last name? Last names are very important. Take my maiden name for instance. When my family first came over here from across the pond it was spelled MacEuen. Which means Sons of Euen. After signing in at Ellis Island the “a” was replaced with an = sign under the “c”. I have no idea why.

I have seen a thousand different spellings of McEuen. My uncle told me that the reason ours is spelled Euen and why we have both Irish and Scot is because of clash of clans that resulted in a love affair. Seems the Scottish son of the head of the clan MacEwen fell for an Irish lass. The only way they could be together was by leaving the clan and starting a new one, Euen. Sounds like plausible and a great movie. I choose to believe it because I am a sap.

Now I chose Leto because in Greek mythology she was the Goddess who gave birth to Artemis and Apollo. Since Rhianne is a great werewolf hunter, witch, and her nightmares are her biggest problem, thus meaning she seems blessed during the day when the sun is up adds underlining strength to the character. Thus, Ms. Rhianne Leto was born.



Please fill free to leave any comments, questions, or suggestions below. I can also be reached on facebook, twitter, and at website colleentews.com


Dream Prophet will be available in Spring of 2017. Thank you. All of this is possible because of you

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