Yesterday I discovered that one of my main character’s names, Brian Baumgardner, is almost identical to the name of the actor who played Kevin on the TV series, The Office. His name is Brian Baumgartner. 

So I changed my character’s name to Calvin. 

This opens a discussion of how easy it is to inadvertently name something, a character, business, restaurant, whatever, the same as an actual one. This leads to possible pitfalls for a story. For one, you might not want the reader to associate a book’s character with the real person. I love Brian Baumgartner, but my character is a strapping young man and I wouldn’t want this comic comparison. 

It’s also important to make an effort to keep your fictional businesses as far removed from actual ones as possible. In the novel I’m currently writing I created a business called Triton Pipeline, but a quick Google search showed me that there’s a large Triton company in the oil and gas business. I’d prefer not to get a call from Triton’s lawyers so I changed the name. 

Does anyone really care if my little books use their name? I don’t know and I don’t care to find out. Who’s got time to deal with that. Lesson: check character names and business names before you put them in your book.