What’s in a Name?

My wife managed to trick me into reading The Hunger Games this weekend.

I know that everyone else in the world has already read it and seen the movie and made awful comments about the race of the characters and so on.

But, honestly, I can’t get past their names. How is it that an editor didn’t say, at some point during the process, “You know you can’t name your main character Katniss, right? And Gale? And Peeta? This isn’t Star Wars. There’s no Lando or Jabba or Sarlacc in future North America, even if lots of people in future Denver now put on weird make-up. How about Katherine and Gabe and Peter instead? What if we just use initials?”

Can you imagine if the main character in Star Wars had been named Chewbacca instead of Luke?

Also, has everyone else already commented on the fact that the baker’s son’s name is just a different spelling of “pita”? I suppose we’re lucky that Katniss wasn’t named Coalmione. And that one of the other tributes wasn’t named Hummus.

The trouble with all of these awful names is that they actively prevent me from suspending my disbelief long enough to get invested in the book.

My wife says they should put out a special edition, just for people with imagination problems.