Here is an explanation of Cárcel and Inés’s names (credits to Novelupdates):
There's more on the explanation of their names. Some I was able to speculate with research beforehand such as Ines' name came from a saint meaning purity. I always viewed it as her character being that of innocence and and returning to it after her sin of "suicide" as Ines also described herself as a lily often, which take on the same meaning as her name. Author-nim said it's a representation that she remained unbroken and never defiled despite her suffering and what Oscar did to her body. She said Ines de Suarez also had a hand into giving that name to Ines.
As for Carcel, she stumbled upon it when looking at a dictionary. The name Carcel Escalante was thought of like a pun to match with the early regression she came up with in mind because of how he's someone willing to always climb back into prison (so if that's the case, the actual prison the author had in mind is Ines whom he is always willing to climb back to). Esposa was just a coincidence. She chose that because she was looking for names that sound Spanish and chose it. It was just ironic that name meant wife so author-nim took that as fate.
it's destiny
Y'all do you think the author named cárcel that on purpose? His name translated to jail in Spanish and it doesn't exist. As in, it's not a Spanish name.
And even though Spain has a lot of awful names(I know so many women called pain and anguish ) cárcel is not one of them, but the author got other names right and the escalates were real people and one of the greats of Spain so??? Is she saying cárcel is like a jail?? For Ines????