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FYI I& #39;ve totally decided not to read certain books because all of the characters in the description have outlandish names, and I know I& #39;m not the only one.
This is true of all genres, including fantasy. Some of those made-up names are wonky af and unpleasant on the brain.
It& #39;s not that I won& #39;t ever read a book with names I don& #39;t like, but I generally won& #39;t request them for review, because, in my experience, I have a much higher rate of not liking other aspects of books where I don& #39;t like the names.
I would also like to clarify that when I talk about "weird" names, I& #39;m not talking about non-white names. Obviously books in other cultures will have names from that culture, and I& #39;m all for that.
In fantasy, as an example, it& #39;s when the names are hard to pronounce or seem randomly pulled from existing cultures in ways that don& #39;t seem to fit with the fantasy world.
I do this a lot with romances. Historical romances with names that absolutely would not be given to kids in that era is a sign it& #39;s probably not my sort of historical romance. And this thread was inspired by a romance with men named Summer and Fox.
Obviously authors and readers can feel any way they want about this, but I do hope authors/publicity understand that often the names we see in the book description are the first sense we get of the world building, whatever the genre.
