The Saviors Series - Characters

My mom - who is pretty much my beta - was looking over the draft for the first story in the Saviors Series, The Travelers. You know, editing and what not. I wasn't really paying attention to her, as I was working on one of my review blogs. After about fifteen minutes of silence, I glanced over at her. She was giving the page a WTH look.

"What?" I asked.

"Where did you come up with these names?!" she laughed.

That was back in February 2009. Up until then, my answers were simple, one word or more. I really didn't want to go into detail. Now, well, what the heck.

As I mentioned in the backstory post, Taylor and Dakota came from a random name generator. Taylor was first. I told Kit to name her character, but to make sure it had six letters - I wanted some semblance of simalarities. She hit refresh for like an hour, depriving me of my laptop (this was before she got her own). Once she picked the name Dakota, we tossed around a list of last names. At one point, I offhandedly mentioned that McKenzie would laugh at us, if only to see us actually doing something productive. Kit said to use her name. So I did.

Zane Michaels is a name that I never expected to create. I usually hate "Z" names; they just bug me for some reason. Why did I chose Zane? I have absolutely no idea. No, seriously. I was writing his introduction scene, and wham! Zane was named. I still to this day have no idea where I pulled that one from. Michaels, on the other hand, is a two-part joke. On one hand, it's a lame-ass tribute to a character from a series of adult supernatural novels that I started reading in tenth grade - Women of the Underworld. On the other, it's a lamer tribute to the store that has supplied me with enough yellow shirts to make an army of Takuya Kanbaras (Yes, the one from Digimon Frontier. I still cosplay him, to this day.).

I created Gaia right after the beta started. I loved the name Gaia (side note: I also had just finished a Yu-Gi-Oh! story that had a world called Gaia...) and I used the random name generator on the site to create her last name, Chaosabyss. Kit had just used the random name generator to get Bella's name. (side note 2: Until we did our terrible web show that only lasted one episode - which I won't name - she never got the connection to Twilight. That's what made that joke so perfect. She wasn't expecting it XD) Zane was the same as Bella - random name generator go!


Aelia Turner is a funny story, just like her FusionFall name Aria Skylar. Aelia is the Latin name my friend chose the day we started Latin one together. (If anyone was wondering, mine was Annia. I also failed Latin. Miserably.) Her last name came from one of her favorite movies, Pirates of the Caribbean. She gave me full choice at her FaFu name, so I came up with Aria. Skylar is a name I've always loved, so I didn't mind giving it to her. When Aria made her story appearence, she wasn't even going to have a part in the actual series, until I wrote the last lines. Her first story was a contest piece on the now-deleted FaFu forums - I lost, but I got the chance to call the GMs on their own rules... I think my old Livejournal has that story.

As for the rest of the original characters, some were names of classmates, some were baby book finds. For the hell of it, the running list of original characters in this series:

• Taylor McKenzie (later Michaels)
• Dakota McKenzie (later Della Robbia)
• Zane Michaels
• Aelia Turner (later Daniels)
• Reese Daniels
• Hope Michaels [Taylor and Zane's daughter]
• Faith Michaels [Taylor and Zane's daughter] (later Daniels)
• Sean Michaels [Taylor and Zane's son]
• Kellen Della Robbia [Dakota and Odd's son]
• Kaitlyn Della Robbia [Dakota and Odd's daughter] (later Daniels)
• Remus Daniels [Aelia and Reese's son]
• Romulus Daniels [Aelia and Reese's son]
• Akira Stern [Ulrich Stern and Yumi Ishiyama-Stern's son]
• Miguel Belpois [Jeremie Belpois and Aelita Schaeffer-Belpois' son]
• Ana Belpois [Jeremie Belpois and Aelita Schaeffer-Belpois' daughter] (later Stern)
• Tsukino Shibayama [Junpei Shibayama and Izumi Orimoto-Shibayama's daughter] (later Minomoto-Kanbara)
• Hiroki Minomoto-Kanbara [Kouji Minomoto and Takuya Kanbara's adoptive son]
• Tracey Michaels [Hope's daughter]
• Audrey Daniels [Faith and Remus's daughter] (Soon to be Stern?)
• Johnathon Michaels [Sean's adoptive son]
• Jenna Michaels [Sean's adoptive daughter]
• Miko Stern [Akira and Ana's son]
• Emiko Minomoto-Kanbara [Hiroki and Tsukino's daughter]

Two names on that list stand out. Johnathon is actually named for my father, John. I didn't want to come right out and say it, but I wanted my dad represented in some way. Sean is the Irish way of saying John, and I would have been named that if I had been a boy. In all actuality, I one day plan to name my own son that, if only to honor my father.

Alright, that's enough for this series. I think I probably made your eyes bleed with that list... I wonder what will be next...?