Dear author

[telophase]

When the leads in your historical romance theoretically set in 12th century
England are named Alyssa and Dillon, I fear you have lost me.

It’s entirely possible they’re medieval names—Tiffany and even my name,
Stephanie, were known in medieval times—but it’s the principle of the thing.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Alis/Alice (Adeliza, etc.) and Dylan: absolutely yes. The contemporary spellings, perhaps less so.

[golden_bastet]

That's what I came to say, without knowing the proper spellings.

I have spent time looking stuff like this up - it 's just a google search away...

[ellen_fremedon]

Though I'm still side-eyeing Dylan if the character isn't Welsh.

[telophase]

Yup: the character was very much not Welsh. An English baron, if I remember his title correctly.

[thistleingrey]

I would, too, since using it as a given name seems rather late. It could have happened without attestation, but it becomes more unlikely the farther a person goes from the areas where relevant stories would've been known. I dunno--I think there is some room for individual migration.

Also, hmm, SCA research says there's a separate English surname Dillon which was introduced to Ireland, though not used as a given name till late. Can't link desktop URL from phone--I'm at work :/

[indywind]

Ah ah ha yep.
Those spellings scream to me "this author knows fuckall about historical naming conventions and more importantly couldn't be bothered to look at some examples and adjust her her choices to seem plausible-ish (so I can probably expect a similar level of implausibility in the rest of the story ugh)"

If absolutely wedded to names that sound like historical versions of Alyssa and Dylan, there are ever so many options that fit better in Beverly Minster Yorkshire in 1200 rather than Beverly Hills 90210 CA in 2000.

Alice, Alys, Alis (English + elsewhere), Ailis (Gaelic), Alais, Aleis, Alesia (Lorraine)
Dillo, Dillon, Dylon, Dilun (English), Dallan (Irish Gaelic).

It took me less than 10 minutes to confirm this list; for someone who wasn't familiar with reliable sources and had to look around a bit to find them, it might take half an hour. Googling "medieval English names" yields several well-documented resources (that is, not "popular baby names and their meanings" but "names from historical documents") in the first page of hits. Just sloppy.

I suppose they hope that readers are there for the romance/porn and not for the thin veneer of fantasy-history dressing.

[telophase]

It was a bestselling traditionally-published author so it's not only them, it's their editors who think the readers are there for the romance/porn. And, alas, according to the many, many reviews, they are. :/
I mean it *is* fantasy romance, in that magic exists in the world, but it's marketed as romance and set in a specific time period of our history. (Book 2 apparently involves time travel.)

[oracne]

LOL!

[chomiji]

A favorite author of mine during my 11-14 years was Sally Watson, who writes lovely spunky heroine historicals that got my sister and me to actually research things like the Scottish Highlands and colonial America.

It wasn't until I got into the SCA in college that I found that her tendency to completely make up names for her leads was pretty jarring to a more sophisticated reader. She sometimes lampshaded the creative names—Lauchlin's mother was supposed to have made up her daughter's name—but I don't think there was a lot of that sort of creativity going on in late 18th-century Scotland, what with the need to have a suitable baptismal name and so on

[telophase]

I read a lot of historical romances back in the day, and I suspect a lot of anachronism flew under my radar at the time! XD