I dont hide the fact that I write fan fiction, mainly to entertain myself and its a great way to try out new characters in known worlds or new worlds with known characters.

So I figured I could use some characters from CSI:NY, that was fine until I got to one character Luke Blade, for the life of me whenever I type the name it coulds out as Nick Blaze. I did not know I'd done this until a friend pointed it out while she was reading it to see if the plot worked.  Can you imagine my confused state when she asked who the character was and who he was based on..LOL So now I have this character as my own because no matter how much I try to make him like the original character he just comes out different.

So my question is, do you have characters that have started out with a set upon name only to write  them with a totally new name? or even apperance or job?

btw I love the new character and have used him already in my NaNO novel.  I understand now what the term inspired by really means.

I have a story in eclectic, (did I spell that wrong again?) and the two sisters in it had two totally different names. One of them became a hairdresser instead of a stay-at-home mom. It's funny...I just complained about a book I started reading in the Paranormal forum and the first woman that answered said the hero's name was awful. Mortimer the vampire.  (Yeah, that's bad.)

I've done that, so many times before I think I've lost count. :P For example, I've used the character/name Gromph before (from Dissolution, War of the Spider Queen) and after a while, the character became Graeme, with an entirely different personality than Gromph had!

I once started a short story about a wannabe hero character that no matter what he did to try and save the day, matters just kept getting worse and worse.  I didn't have a name for the character, and was having trouble figuring out where the story was going.  

One day I while on a group camping trip I was telling a friend of a friend about it and as soon as I started with the pronoun "He" she immediately interrupted and piped up with "She!" 

And in that instant my character not only changed gender, but took on a life of her own.  The stories just seemed to flow after that!  (I ended up naming the character Jessica, after my friend's friend, since she never would have existed if not for her!)

In a word, yes. Darn characters, they seem to want to have a life of their own, don't they know I'm the one in charge?