Changing Names

You know what's really hard? Changing names. THere have been a few instances where I've wanted to change the names of my characters. In "The Light of the Sun," Erika's name was originally Angela. Actually, Erika and Angela were completely different characters. But I didn't think Angela fit the role so I used Erika instead. I changed that one very quickly. Angela became Erika within only a few chapters.
Then in "Of Spirits and Demons," Darien Jaiyer changed his name. In the original draft, his first name was Daniel. I think it was over half way through that I changed it to Darien. But it wasn't too hard to remember because Darien seemed to fit better than Daniel. (Besides I stole the name Daniel from someone I know and I didn't feel comfortable doing that even though I've stolen names for other characters before).
And then in Shadow Split, Briena's second story, there's too many characters. And the Aboree was named Terra. But that never felt right. First of all, she was from Africa. Terra doesn't have anything to do with African stuff. It just means "earth" which isn't very creative. The name Terra was actually a statement cause I'm sick of people pronouncing my name Terra. They do it all the time if they're reading my name or something. Terra is clearly spelled Terra, not Tara. So there. Observe all of the "are" sounds with the a that is in my name.
fAr
jAr
mAr
bAr
and even
tAr
etc.
Either way, back on topic.
I have committed one more major name change as of last night. IN "Of Spirits and Demons," Kimia was the girl in the legend. KimIRA, Briena's friend, is named after KimIA. But I decided that I wanted KimIRA to be the girl in teh legend, and KimIA would be named after Kimira. So, I did the whole "find and replace" thing on my computer. Kimira is officially Kimia and Kimia is officially Kimira.