Scarlett
asked
Amanda Hocking:
Why did you chose the name Konstantin instead of like Paul or Daniel?
Amanda Hocking
The Kanin Chronicles is based on Scandinavian folklore about trolls. According to the Kanin history in the series, they migrated from Sweden with the Vikings, so in keeping with that history, I tried to use a lot of Swedish names.
When I was naming characters, I looked up common first names and surnames in Sweden. Konstantin was one of them that came up, and I liked it a lot. His last name was originally "Svart," which means "black" in Swedish, but I decided to change it to Black instead simply because I thought Konstantin Black sounded cooler than Konstantin Svart.
In Sweden, they tend to use K's instead of C's in their names, so that's why it's Konstantin and not Constantine, or Viktor intsead of Victor.
Some names were chosen simply because I liked them - Ember and Ridley, for example. But I didn't want names that sounded too American.These are paranormal creatures, living in a semi-magical kingdom hidden among us, I wanted their names to separate them a bit, so I didn't want a lot of names like Paul or Anna, even though those are also fairly common in Scandinavia.
When I was naming characters, I looked up common first names and surnames in Sweden. Konstantin was one of them that came up, and I liked it a lot. His last name was originally "Svart," which means "black" in Swedish, but I decided to change it to Black instead simply because I thought Konstantin Black sounded cooler than Konstantin Svart.
In Sweden, they tend to use K's instead of C's in their names, so that's why it's Konstantin and not Constantine, or Viktor intsead of Victor.
Some names were chosen simply because I liked them - Ember and Ridley, for example. But I didn't want names that sounded too American.These are paranormal creatures, living in a semi-magical kingdom hidden among us, I wanted their names to separate them a bit, so I didn't want a lot of names like Paul or Anna, even though those are also fairly common in Scandinavia.
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