Okay, people, so TWO of my beta readers stumbled over the name Patrick O’Brien because they kept thinking of the author, so I’m going to change it. I’m keeping O’Brien, I think (although I suppose I’d be okay with O’Brian instead). But the field is wide open otherwise for an Irish male first name. Pitch me your favorites.
(His daughter’s name is Maya, so I’d prefer not an ‘M’ name, just to avoid confusion.)
Pic of me, about to board flight. Will Patrick have a new name by the time I land? We’ll see.
10:30 p.m. editing to note — I should probably have mentioned that this takes place a few hundred years in the future, on another planet. My protagonist is not Catholic, but was probably raised in some Catholic-derived future religion, after a few schisms and such. He’s from an Irish minority community on a South Asian-settled planet, so I’m imagining there’s some sense of clinging to Irish identity, and most people would go for fairly old-school traditional Irish names.