Game of Thrones author George RR Martin used the 'flavour of medieval England' to name the cast
Game of Thrones might have inspired some recent entries on the UK’s most popular baby names list for 2013, but the author of the novels has admitted that he was inspired by old-fashioned baby naming books for his characters.
George RR Martin said: “Names are hard. There’s no easy answer to that. I have a library of What To Name Your Baby books, even though I’ve never had a baby. And I'm always picking up new What To Name Your Baby books.”
He admitted that online fantasy name generators had been no use to him, producing names that were “too much” and difficult to pronounce.
Game of Thrones stars - off duty
Instead he prefers to look to history to find names to borrow saying: “I wanted the flavour of medieval England… English history is all Henrys and Edwards. Occasionally a Richard sneaks in. Whenever you have a Prince of Wales with an odd name like Arthur or Eustace, you know they’re not gonna make it.”
In 2013, eleven boys were named Theon apparently in homage to the fantasy series, whilst three were named Tyrion and four baby girls named Daenerys after the popular Khaleesi character played by Emilia Clarke in the HBO series.
Martin was speaking at an event for readers sponsored by blinkbox and also discussed his surprise at the success of his work and reports of fans choosing “George RR Martin" as their Halloween costume – namely his trademark flat cap.
He said: “Writing is weird. I know I don’t solve problems with my rational brain, the way people solve problems in life. It’s absolutely no good with writing. When I’ve written myself into a dead end… I abandon that character for a little while. Fortunately I have a lot of characters, so if I run in to problems with Tyrion, I can switch to Arya.”
Martin is currently working on the sixth book in the series, originally intended to be only a trilogy, while the fifth series of the TV adaptation is due to start filming in the next few weeks.
