Naming Characters

[Spenser]

I wanted a name for my first heroine so I asked my seven year old daughter Joeleigh, and she said without pause Joelia. Now I have the name.

 

[TheUltimateChosenOne]

I searched on google for a list of names and I got severl sites on names, history of names, name meanings. Sometimes I spell the name different to make it look more unique and different. Try baby name sites or history names. There are thousands of names to chose from.
A few days ago I found this site that had over 27,000 names and I chose about over a thousand and wrote them down in my note book, so if I need a name for a character I just go to my notes!

 

[Archus]

For me it depends on what role the names will play. In my contempory project, they tend to either be biblical or some variation thereof, like Sarah, Josh, Dan etc. but in my fantasy series, name and identity have an important role, so the meaning of the name is very important. Luckily I've used my own languages (though I may redo them....) so the meanings and the phonetics are quite unique, like Bain, for example. I won't divulge too much, but you take a meaning, like fire, or heat, and make up a stem that goes with it. Let's call it Ha-. Now, we need something else... how about bird, or flight, could be sor. So a firebird, or phoenix automatically becomes Hasor. Also if you look at the meanings, it could be a heat current, or a flying fire, like a fireball, so now you have a word that takes several meanings, and is unique.

That's how I do it anyway.

 

[catseyekitty]

Baby name websites and books. Enough said.

Ok, not really, but it's definately fun to go through those. When I was in 5th grade, I have a habit of inventing names (Conchristo, Gulles, Samura) that the other kids thought were stupid...now here I am creating characters out of them that are uber awesome. I think it's Fate playing little games... if you don't look for the names you'll find the perfect one....but until then, baby names are the way to go.

 

[Urlik]

a great place to find unusual names is your email inbox

anything labelled as spam is fair game (IMO)

 

[Pravuil]

For the majority of my characters, the names come straight out of my imagination. I tend to use names that reflect the characters' personalities, and it's not uncommon for me to have a list of names to use that I've written ages ago, with no set characters in mind. I'm probably not the only one to do this, but some of my names in the past have originated or been derived from botanical terms, ie latin names for plants as partial inspiration.

You and Robert Jordan are on the same wavelength, it seems. Lan 'Mandragoran'. I still can't get over that.

From a personal view, I think incorporating the etmyology of certain "key", related words for use in a name is just cheesy. There's two other approaches I prefer: 1) define the character on every plane (martial, mental, emotional, etc.) and dredge up certain names that best fit that character but still leave some room for flexibility. Naming for me is done on a visceral level, but you never want to make a name too rigid in it's interpretations. Failing this, find such names as mentioned above that you like and jot them down some where. (Example: If I wanted to make an autumn goddess name, or a character who can most be specified as having the "autumn-look" or "autumn-characteristics" I would consider all things vernal on an emotional level as oppossed to an intelligence or linguistics level. The end product would be something along the lines of Aldree, Vaerna, etc.) 2) Do what Tolkien did and use little-known names taken out of mythology, history, etc. that strike the certain cord of viscerality you desire. Gandalf, an elf-king in other sources, is a prime example of this.

I also find certain letter combinations and words emanate select emotions and that one should never give too much of their thought to name-making; read, synthesize and it should all come in good time; there's my rant on this.

Edit: It's all relative to essence and conveyance.

 

[Cheehwawa]

Depends on the story. I have a story heavily influenced by mythology, so I use names from greek and egyptian and christian mythology in it... for the main characters. For the extras I just use cool sounding names that you dont hear too often, for example a Naiad named "Kaya"

I also have a SciFi story Im sort of working on thats a sequal to the first, some of the myth-influenced characters are back. I also created some names and I just have some sheets of paper with names I throw on them whenever I hear a good one (like Maddox or Mabus) in everyday life, or if I think of one (like Jarek or Kadem)

Same goes for city/nation names with me. Thestoss is a cool greek-sounding name for a city, I think, so I added it to my list

 

[Aorrowan]

Definitely another vote for baby name websites. I also am a big fan of the free online translator sites, just enter in the meaning that you want for your name and start translating!

 

[Steve S]

I usually mine mythology and legends for names - I tend to find when I try to invent names they sound unconvincing somehow (maybe that's just me!). When writing fantasy I make every effort to ensure some consistency, for example in the novel I am writing at the moment one of the lands visited in the story is loosely based on Mongolia, so I have used ancient (and rather obscure!) Mongol names for all the characters therein.

 

[Rookie]

My names come from the top of my head. But most are plain names or names with a twist. If I can't pronounce a name, I skip it or make up my own name for that character, while im reading. Some of my names are: Tom, Esther, Victor, Pheobé, Ashlin and Kylie.

 

[worldmaker]

The trickiest part of a story is creating plausible names. Plucking them out of a hat sounds like a good idea, until you are confronted with the practical realities of your story's back history.

Here's an example - can you create a name for an upper class English woman?

Sharon and Tracery won't work, well you might, just possible get away with Tracie (eccentric English family), but you would be treated with more respect if you choose a Diana, a Caroline, an Elizabeth, or Penelope.

With science fiction it's easier, you normally don't have any back history to marr your choices.

But beware of creating a back history in your sequels....

 

[Reyben]

Real life contains a surprising number of implausible-sounding names (senator Strom Thurmon, I'm looking at you), which are easy to mine once a couple of syllables are changed to make them sound a little more... realistic.

I'm another who likes names with a mythological undertone or slightly deeper meaning- but I try not to go crazy because, well, it just comes off as a bit silly if every single character has an ancient Aramiac name that denotes their story function and fate. I'm also quite fond of using real-if-unusual words as character names, provided it doesn't sound to obstrusive. "Basque" is my current favourite.

Naming is hard... it's so important to the flavouring of a character. I once called someone 'Sharon,' with that as a placeholder name. I couldn't think of a better one, and in desperation ended up killing poor Sharon off. Of course, there's always the tried-and-tested (and irritating) SF/F method of naming an alien/demon/wizard/elf/foriegner by taking a regular name and stuffing it full of apostraphes and so forth. Isn't that right, Jo'k'l'ha-na;th-at'on.

 

[Precise Calibre]

Interesting side-twist to creating character names is thinking about the character itself. If you intend the character to be original in and of themselves, then the names can be whatever you think fits it. However, if you are perhaps intending to be an "easter egg" or reference to something else, one might consider taking a name that already exists and mincing the letters around a bit to come up with a new name, while at the same time putting your own little hidden reference into the story, there for clever people to perhaps pick up on.

 

[Asmer20]

I created my characters by writing names backwards. My name is Rebecca, the main character in my book is Cebera. I happen to love the name James, so I just used that for Cebera's mentor.

You don't always have to come up with a name unless the character stands out in a way (non-human, etc).

Formon one of the oldest bad guys in my book is supposed to look like he was created from ashes, kind of like saying Fireman, but not exactly.

I admit I'm sort of a copycat in an original way. I got the name Vardaise from Darth Vader (because Vardaise is sort of like Vader) .