I have a small confession to make. I sort of hate the names that are specifically found in American teen and children's books. I apologise if any of these names are yours but they do seem extremely American and less common here. This was brought to my attention in more recent days as I was putting out some books on the shelves. I won't tell you the book but bonus points if you can locate it when you come in. So I was reading the blurb when it struck me. Why does everyone's name have additional and somewhat arbitrary letter y's?
I get that there are different ways to spell names but other than Adrienne, what is happening here?! Maybe because I have a friend called Mikaela I always think of it spelt that way but I see Michaela pretty often too. McKeyla just seems sort of unnecessary. I think of Mc-key-la. Then there's Bryden which is sort of both Bridie, Braden and Hayden. It's a wonderful mix. And finally Camryn. With a Y!!! Why!!! Or Y!!! I wonder if kids with really irregular spellings take longer to learn how to spell their names because they're often the less common pronunciations of letters.
In other obscure book ranting news, I always wonder why books are titled 'Not just ____' for instance, hypothetically, 'Not just potatoes'. This seems sort of useless to me because I'm counting on the title to tell me what the book's about. I'm not automatically looking at it and thinking 'oh this is about potatoes' if there's nothing to suggest it on the front cover. Just name it 'Root Vegetables' because that's less vague than the former. If you say 'not just' then what else will you be talking about? This is real in depth bookshop thinking. I'll let you chew on that for a while ;)
