Names

[valarltd]

I have a pair of brothers named Ariel and David benEzra. What ethnicity are they? Is there any ambiguity?

Short of naming them Tevye and Hymie Jewy Bar Jewison is there any way I could have made their family origin clearer?

Does anyone see those names, coupled with the phrase "strongly middle eastern features" and think "oh, Arabian, how nice?" Just curious here.

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Comments

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

This was more of a check to see if I was crazy. My co-author saw only "middle eastern" in the description and assumed they were Muslim, despite the name. I was doing a check to see if the name was recognizably Jewish or if most readers are going to think "oo, Muslim." The Jewishness is central to them, but not their only defining trait. Just as Sean and Tara O'Neill (our heroes) are Catholic, but that's not all they are. We're never explicitly told in either case, as we are with the one who is Church of Christ, Programmer, since I assumed my readers would recognize the markers, like names and practices.