Power Girl might have a new partner and a new power in the form of astral punching, a remnant of the Lazarus rain, but those aren’t the most significant changes for the erstwhile Kryptonian. “Karen Starr” is gone, replaced by her new alter ego and chosen name, Paige Stetler.
“Paige is uniquely hers,” Williams shares. “It started out as Omen having a series of nicknames for Power Girl. She abbreviated Power Girl as PG, and then it got shortened into Peej. Later, when they're working with Jon Kent on something, he's like, ‘Peej kind of sounds like Paige, which is a really pretty name.’ And the idea is, this is the beginning of our Power Girl story. This is page one. So that's how I came up with Paige.”
Williams also reveals for the first time that “Stetler” has its own meaning.
“I wanted her to have a cowboy name,” she explains. “I used to work at a cattle ranch in Montana, so I've known lots of cowboys. Some of them were named Stetler. I wanted her to have a kind of cowboy-sounding name because, compared to the rest of the Super-Family, she’s a bit of a lone ranger. She's a part of the family and she loves them, but she's also working on her own a lot. That's what she's used to and that's what she is comfortable with.”