When one writes a novel or a series, one has to make up the names of the main characters. There are all sorts of reasons one names the main characters particular names. I could probably name a hundred reasons, but for this post I will only name the reasons why I named my main characters—the prodigal band members and their women and a few others—what I named them.
I came up with these names for the most part in the mid-60s, but instead of a ‘prodigal’ rock band, they and the girls that hung out with them were a clique or a gang of sorts, and were ‘locals,’ fictitious teens living on Long Island which is where I grew up. They had no particular ethnicity or religion, but were as if they were the same kind of teens as the actual teens where I lived, and where I lived the population was almost all white (a few blacks or Hispanics or Asians where I lived), about 40 percent Italian and about 20 percent Jewish, with the rest being a mix of mostly northern Europeans (mostly German, British, French, Polish, Scandinavian, Czech, Slovak, or Russian). The most common boy’s names were John or Jack, Tom, Pete, Joe, Bob, Bill, Mike…typical common boys names. In fact, the surnames for the band members didn’t really come up until the latter 60s when the clique turned into a rock and roll band—a band from England, a year or two before I actually visited England as a high school graduation gift, along with the friend who suggested this trip, who happened to be Jewish (but not religious about it).
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