#sherendipityart

Okay y'all. I've got a question that I am in desperate need to figure out and this is the only place that lets me make polls big enough to explain it. So I've been battling with my MC's name for about a year at this point if not longer, and every time I come back to revisit it it just brings me even more decision paralyses and confusion. My dilemma is this, this OC is technically kindof a self-insert. That's how she started and while she has deviated a bit, I feel like the resemblance is still definitely there. Like at this point she is based on me and idk if it's possible for me to escape that with her since it's so engrained into how she's written. My problem is that she's part of an original story/universe that I hope to someday get published, whether it's as a novel or comic or whatever. And I'm not sure what to do when it comes to her first name, as it is my name. But every name I choose, while fitting for her, ends up not synergizing/sounding right when read aloud with the names of the rest of the cast. And of course that's not even counting the issue of whether her first name sounds good with her last name and whether that needs to be changed and yadda yadda yadda. It's a lot and it's a mess. In addition, it doesn't help that her name is very unique and sounds lovely (Sheridan), sounds right when spoken with the names of the other characters, and the meaning fits both the theme of the work she's in and her character as a whole ("peacemaker" in Hebrew). And yeah sure I have the option of a pen name, but would that require me to change my entire online presence in order to adapt to that persona? Bc my first name has been out there for ages and idk if it's worth it to completely overhaul that at this point. I feel like people would tilt their heads if I suddenly started calling myself Ashley or smth like that and I don't wanna make it weird pfft. I've been going around this circle for way too long and it's frustrating that I can't just pick one thing and stick to it. So, in your personal opinion, what should I do? I just wanna see what people outside of my head think.