Obviously Deacon is a title with a religious connotation, however this young man is a professed atheist. So why Deacon? While visiting a town named Deacon, I saw the name on the back of a hockey jersey and was taken with the name.

Carver is a name that represents an action that can be either creative or destructive and that duality fits the character.

Char is pronounced like Charlie, not Charlene. The character was male in the first few drafts, before I decided the character worked better as a woman. I like the masculine sound of Char for her, it’s tough, brittle, cutting: charbroiled, charcoal…

Osbaldistan was the name of a kicker for my hometown football team, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Sakinah is a girl’s name in Malay. I’ve had a few students with that name. She has a sister named Syefura, also a Malay girl’s name, but one I had to google to find.

Rikaine is the name of the murder victim in Isaac Asimov’s novel The Naked Sun.

Westmoreland was the name of the commanding officer of my sea cadet corp, forty-plus years ago.

Captain van der Westhuizen, an Afrikaner name I heard a few times when living in Johannesburg.

Silence Karataki, while Karataki is a Japanese sounding name, I actually know someone named Silence, he’s from Namibia.

Mikael Radazov, a vaguely Ukrainian/Russian sounding name.

Yavid Laatif. I used to live on a street called Yakob Laatif in Kuala Lumpur. I changed Yakob to Yavid to have a little bit less Malay-naming in the story.

Gennady (last name undetermined), a vaguely Ukrainian/Russian sounding name that I saw on the credits of a TV show once.

Rocha (last name undetermined), a vaguely Portuguese sounding name.