As you know, I have a lot of fun with names!
Elsie
Elsie is named after the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, and some of the things Elsie does in Pink Chameleon, I read about in Schiaparelli’s autobiography Shocking Life . She called it that in part because she first coined the term ‘shocking pink’.
Rorie
Rorie is so called because I wanted her to have something unusual – also because in my original story idea (radically changed now), there was a reason for her to be called ‘Aurora’, which means ‘dawn’.there may still, in book three; I don’t know, I haven’t written it yet!
Arran & Harris Silk
I haven’t given all my characters in Silk Sisters ‘clothing’ names, but in this case I have. You may have an Arran sweater, a traditional garment made on the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland . I doubt that you have a Harris tweed jacket, but this kind of fabric similarly is named after one of the islands where it is produced, in this case in the Outer Hebrides.
Aunt Irmine
Irmine is named after ermine, the winter coat of the stoat which is used in the fur industry, particularly royal garments and, historically, ceremonial robes for members of the House of Lords.
Nolita Newbuck
Nolita, or rather NoLita, is a neighbourhood in downtown Manhattan ; it stands for ‘north of Little Italy’. Nubuck is a kind of artificial suede; I just changed the spelling.
Arthur Clarkson
He is named after a cat belonging to a friend of my daughter’s. Why did she call her cat Arthur Clarkson? Because she got him around the time a boy in her class (Arthur Clarkson, of course!) went to live in Australia , and she knew she was going to miss him!
Nikki Deeds & Leesa Simms
Because Nikki Deeds is such an athletics star, I played around with Nike and Adidas to get her name.
In computer hacker terminology ‘leet’ originates from 31337, shortened to 1337 (read the numbers upside down!), the port that was used by a notorious hacker group to access a programme that enabled them to get into companies’ private computer files. The Sims , I’m sure you know, is a computer game in which you can create made-up families, their homes and so on. A SIM card is what stores memory in any digital device.
Inspector Dixon
He is a very nice, kindly and reassuring policeman, so I named him after a nice, kindly, reassuring TV policeman I remember from my childhood, Dixon of Dock Green.