But if the idea sounds impressive for its seemingly brilliant simplicity, then think again. For the authors, the writing process promises to be a major headache. In fiction, names are everything. You can bet the likes of Leopold Bloom, Holden Caulfield, Winston Smith, Martin Chuzzlewit, Holly Golightly or Harry Lime did not start life as publicity hungry bidders in an auction room. However, it is true that Ian Fleming's most celebrated creation, secret service spy James Bond, was named after an American ornithologist who Fleming lived next door to in the Caribbean.
Names can say a lot.
You make assumptions about people that you are going to meet just by their name. An Algernon is very different from a Dean. Crace has a peculiar approach to naming his characters. They're really just European names, which is useful if you don't want to tie the story to one country. Lowdo, a character in his book Continent, derives from the word lowdown.