Many of these names are very similar. A lot of them involve the classic Fantasy Novel Apostraphes. I had a lot of trouble remembering who was Amara and who was Amaya and who belonged to the one region but had a noble last name that had nothing to do with that region but was unfortunately similar to the noble last name from the other region.
ARGH. This, so much. I have books that have their own, personal bookmarks, because said bookmark is actually a 3x5 card with the characters listed on it so I can keep them straight. (I learned this from my parents- there are books in this house where such character lists are written inside the book.)
I think a lot of this is due to names we're used to using everyday, vs. ones we aren't. Most of us can spot the difference between Bryan and Ryan quickly, and keep them separate in our heads, because we're used to them. Names of languages we're not used to? Not so much- my Brother Cadfael books tend to have the most 'character name notes' in them, specially if the book is dealing with a lot of Welsh characters.
As for fantasy, this can be even worse, as most of the names/languages/cultures are Made Up straight from the author's head.
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ARGH. This, so much. I have books that have their own, personal bookmarks, because said bookmark is actually a 3x5 card with the characters listed on it so I can keep them straight. (I learned this from my parents- there are books in this house where such character lists are written inside the book.)
I think a lot of this is due to names we're used to using everyday, vs. ones we aren't. Most of us can spot the difference between Bryan and Ryan quickly, and keep them separate in our heads, because we're used to them. Names of languages we're not used to? Not so much- my Brother Cadfael books tend to have the most 'character name notes' in them, specially if the book is dealing with a lot of Welsh characters.
As for fantasy, this can be even worse, as most of the names/languages/cultures are Made Up straight from the author's head.