I have a good idea for an adaptation of a book, but am wondering if one changes the names of the characters when doing such an adaptation? The books is around 150 years old and some of the names are no longer in common use in English.

Whether or not you change anything in your adaptation should be dictated by when you plan to write the story about. If you plan to base the story on the exact same time that the book is based on, then there is no need to change anything. If you plan to do a modern update of the book (as if it was happening today) when composing your adaptation, then you might want to consider some minor changes to update with the times you are writing for. That's how I would approach it.

Later,

Peter's suggestion would be ideal, but to modern audiences a name that's too exotic might be a distraction. It may depend on the name itself.

For instance, if it's a prominent male character whose name is now only used by women, I'd change it. If it has other modern connotations -- for instance, an Arabian named "Osama" -- I'd change that.

Perhaps you can tell us some of the names and a brief description of the characters?

Those are all good suggestions - but there are a couple of other things that need to be thought about too. Since the names have to be spoken, you don't want to make life too difficult for the actors by using names that don't "roll of the tongue" easily. Another is to make sure that the names sound sufficiently different from each other to not cause confusion. Directors have occasionally been known to change character names for these reasons (usually without permission!)

Having said that, names are not quite as important to a play as they are to a novel - as the audience can see the characters, and hence often don't need a "handle" to identify them (as they would if reading a book). The only time a name is needed is if, say, two characters refer to a third, in their dialogue. There are plenty of plays where you never actually learn the characters' names, or the names are so insignificant that the audience often can't remember them afterwards (but still remember the characters quite vividly).

David

Is your adaptation staying true to the original time of the book? If so, keep the names -- especially if the book is well known. If it's not, consider changing the time to another one that allows you a little more creative freedom while keeping true to the source material's intent.

Actually, I might need to change some things... in my play, there is a bad guy called Rlarg. Try saying that.

M

Rlarg = Larg, silent R, imo :o

I wouldn't change names, imo, i think it's best to stick true to the original names, especially as certain names may have meanings the original author had in mind (Think of someone making a film version of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' and changed Earnest's name!). One example, that i can think of, of a name change, that was absolutely horrid, was in the movie version of Frankenstein. They changed Victor's name to Henry...Keeping the name's the same helps with keeping familiarity between those who read the story originally and are now watching the movie/play