After a nearly three month hiatus, I began the second draft of The Spark last night. Threw out nearly the entire first chapter (more like a prologue) and I'm now coming at it from a completely different angle. And, as is my wont between drafts, I changed the name of the main character. I don't know why I do that. Why can't I simply: 1) pick the right character name to begin with, or 2) learn to like it? I mean, it's just a name, right?
I think it really says something about the value we place on names. For me, it's not until I put it into use for a couple hundred pages that I can know whether it fits or not.
Anyway, it feels good to get back on the horse. I'm hopeful this keeps going.
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My current WIP (which is also my 2010 NaNo novel) is one in which I changed the MC's name. The original name was just a bunch of letters I put together. Unfortunately, pronunciation was a bit of a crapshoot: one of my alpha readers had a completely different (and logical) pronunciation from mine. So now the MC is Connor. And, truth be told, I'm not exactly thrilled with that name. (In case you're curious, I've considered Kerwin, too, but that's too close to Kermit. The frog.)
If Kerwin is too close to Kermit you could always give it a different spelling. Like Cerwyn. Even though you'll be right back to your original pronunciation problem.
It's hard to like a protagonist named "Buttzinger Zeitgeist." Most of the time.
I have the same problem with names. In one of my books, 40 people have normal names, and then there's a guy named Occulis. What the hell. He doesn't even fit.
Was it Occulis Jones? If so, then that would fit.
I also take it that you didn't like Gumshoe Macbeth?