As I approach the end of the first draft of Book III - RACHEL and try to tie up all the lose ends, I realize I have so many characters that I don't remember their names [don't worry, Book III will have a family tree to help you sort everyone out]. Creating names for all these people was quite a challenge. First of all, many of them are historical figures and I wanted to use their real names, if I could find them, even for obscure ones like members of Count Thibault's retainers. But learning these real names caused new problems, because some of these folks had the same name (as in real life where I once attend a bat mitzvah reception where all five men at my table were named David). But readers become confused if several characters have the same name, so I felt compelled to avoid this as much as possible.
For example with Rachel's son Shemiah vs. Meir's study-partner Shemayah, I kept their real names and used different spellings. I had a different tactic for all the Samuel's; also using the Hebrew, Shmuel, as well as a nickname, Shmuli. Unfortunately, there were a few times when I gave up and made up a completely new name even though I knew the correct one. There were already too many Eliezer's (even with variant spellings), so I named Miriam's third son Elisha instead. I know that Rachel's daughter was actually named Miriam, but secondary characters with the same name as the leads would have been far too confusing, so she became Rivka. Of course, I made up that name for Rashi's wife, whose true name has been lost to us. Actually, I didn't just make it up. I read a legend that said he married a woman named Rivka, but the tale was clearly false because it had Rivka as a duke's daughter. Another legend gave his wife's name as Miriam, but of course that was also impossible. I knew that neither his daughters or mother was named Rivka, so I went with it.
When I couldn't find a character's real name, or the character was completely fictional, I still wanted names that were authentic for the 11th century and for the country they lived in. How I did that will be in my next post.