Names and Last Names

[AVA_writing]

So, a book in my genre just came out where the main protagonist has the same last name of one of my central characters. It is emphasized a lot in the book. Does this mean I need to find a new one?

[raktinope]

If I were you I wouldn't be too worried.

[Odd John]

How unusual or ordinary is the last name? The more unusual it is, the more likely I'd do a search & replace. (Coincidence sucks sometimes... )

[AVA_writing]

I thought it was unusual enough... I am resigned to the fact I am going to have to replace it.

[MJ]

I agree that replacing it is the safer option. We can't ever say for sure that a character's name hasn't been used in another novel or, for that matter, on a sports team, a band, in politics, on social media. . . I just had to change a Welsh character's name in a nearly completed ms because it was identical to a hugely popular member of the Wales national football team (a fact I missed since I'm not a fan.) Luckily, there are multiple phonetic spellings of ethnic names, so it was only a matter of changing one letter.