By Benji Elkins:
As of this moment, author Timothy Bennett is struggling to come up with a name for a character in his upcoming novel. The reason? The character is a person of color and Bennett is having extreme trouble coming up with a name that balances the line between being diverse and full blown racist. “Like, I definitely can’t name him Tyrone. That’s an immense stereotype,” Bennett lamented to The Milking Cat, “But can I name him DeShawn? One of my best friends is named DeShawn. Granted, he’s not black. But I know of black people out there named DeShawn.”
Bennett reportedly tried to overcome his writer’s block by switching the race of his diverse character to a different ethnicity, Indian, yet the problem still persisted. “Devesh is way too stereotypical. Like, my character is so much more than just a stereotype, he’s a real person, and he needs to represent his people realistically. An ethnic character isn’t just a check mark for me.” Bennett said after having changed the race, name, and personality of his character three times prior.
Surnames have also reportedly been hard for Bennett, cycling through names such as Ming, Patel, Banh, Tesfaye, Awad, and Cohen.
Ultimately, Bennett decided that his best bet was to use the name Kevin Miller.