character names

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jezelf

jezelf.co.uk
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Found these while browsing during my lunch hour. (Wanted dig deeper and find other stuff than the usual baby names webites).Thought they might help others too.

I haven't had time to explore in depth, but they looked like a wealth of information, so I just had to share them!

http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/
http://www.name-meanings.com/
http://www.namenerds.com/irish/lists.html
http://www.gallica.co.uk/celts/names.htm
http://www.behindthename.com/nmc/cel-anci.php
http://www.behindthename.com/nmc/anci.php
http://www.mythome.org/celticnames.html
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/nameetymologies/p/AncientNames.htm
http://www.egyptpyramidhistory.com/pyramid_names.htm
http://ahd.exis.net/monaghan/irish-names-naming.htm
http://pleiades.stoa.org/names

Some of these are not just lists with meanings, but also structure for families like the Irish Naming Patterns for Children for example...

The 1st son was usually named after the father's father
The 2nd son was usually named after the mother's father
The 3rd son was usually named after the father
The 4th son was usually named after the father's eldest brother

etc.. and pronounciation, and more.

I did have a link to "Celtic Names of the British Isles", but it is no longer in use. However I did download the list, so I'll create a PDF and post up a download link if people are interested.

BTW: is there a place here on CN for resources - lists of links like this? I'm talking about something like the Photo reference archive that forum users have built up over at

REFERENCES - ConceptArt.org Forums

Having a sub forum like that where people post links for everyone's reference would be pretty handy. It can be time consuming trawling through posts where it goes off topic and the like.

please post other links if you don't mind sharing them.

Hope it helps.
Cheers
jez
 
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Hey, thanks! We can never have enough naming "books". I still remember the funny looks I got in high school when I bought my first book of names. (and yes that was long long ago in a galaxy far far away where good little girls in high school didn't need baby names :))
 
I like to use ingredients off of foods, shampoos, ect. All I do is change them a bit, and presto!

Example.

Tabasio ( Tabasco.)
Avena Casivo (Hair Conditioner)
Cerin Torius (Hair Dye)
Althea Amyl (Hair Mousse)
Fernhaulten Gerbrauch (hair spray)

That last one is very much appropriate for a large Swedish milk maid.
 
I found this page that features names listed by type, as in American, Irish, Spanish, and also things like, dragon names, evil names, colour names, etc. Those last are usually names that mean dragon, something evil, a color in some language, etc. It's useful when you want to give a character a significant name, such as someone who likes butterflies being called a butterfly name (ok, that sounded corny, but it gets the point across).

Here's the web, hope it's useful (altough you might know of it already as it's easy to spot on Google):

Alright, can't post links without more than 15 posts, so just search in Google: 20.000 Names and it's the first one to come up.
 
I had quite a lot of success just thinking of a totally normal word and deliberately typoing it - just smooshing my hands on the keyboard somewhere near the letters. If you then neaten it up a bit, you end up with something much more like a believable name than just going along whacking loads of Tolkien's Elvish style letters into everything.
 
When a bunch of my characters (already named) had to pick faux-Japanese tags, I googled for baby-name lists.

And, yes, I discovered that I'd only painted myself into a corner.

Took some lateral thinking to wriggle out, I tell you !! (*)

Also, while on holiday, I copied a bunch of random names from local phone-book to guarantee a local flavour.
===
(*) Excerpt From 'Six of Motley', but Punctuation = 'raw'
...
He picked up a slim presentation folder. It held a dozen A4/legal sheets.
"Printed from a web-site." Art pointed to the first page's footer, perhaps squinted through his mask's mild distortion, "Aha ! We have a baby-name list !"
"David, gonna need your help..." Joe slid it across the table, whispered, "Remember-- Me, Joe !"
"D'uh..." David flicked through the pages, ran a finger down the columns. His boxed chuckle came out as a very girly giggle, "Oh, yeah ! How about 'Jo-Mei' ?"
Joe nearly choked on the drink he was sucking, "Uuugh ! Ach ! D'uh ? You kiddin' ?"
David swivelled the folder, pointed, "Jo-Mei, 'Spreads Light'."
"D'uh..."
"Go for the glow, Joe !" Art quipped, "I should be so lucky !"
"Me and my mouth..." Joe thought about it, "Jo-Mei ? Jo-Mei ? Okay, that ain't so bad. Who's next ?"

"Mike ?" David turned a page, "Still happy with 'Mieko' ?"
"Uh-huh." It was nicer than the 'Manguusu' (Mongoose) tag my mat-work earned in Japan, "Mieko, 'Bright', sure..."
"How about you ?" Henry asked.
"No-brainer." David shrugged, "I'm David *Min* Wu. My nearest is 'Minako'--"
" 'Beautiful Child'." I stated, "Sorry, I'm Channeling again."
"You're only right, though..." David chuckled.
"Pretty names !" Pete chirped, "Got one for me ?"
"Uh..." David hunted, searched, shook his head, "Not yet, phonetics are wrong."
"How about a middle name ?" I suggested.
Pete leaned across, whispered too quietly for his voice changer to catch. David shook his head, "Sorry. Real handsome, but..."
"Uh, doesn't a '-ko' on the end usually mean 'Child Of' ?" I offered, "From your Mum or Dad's name ?"
"Uh, he's Bill--"
"Bill ? William ? No use--"
"Mum's Amelia, Amy for short."
"Ah !" David leafed back to the start, " 'Amiko' ? Ami's Child ?"
"Sweet !" Pete agreed, "Family says I take after her !"

"And one for me ?" Henry waved.
" 'Harumi' ?" Pete soon offered.
"Sounds good..." Henry decided, "What does it mean ?"
" 'Spring Beauty'." David announced.
"Oh ! Even that fits ! I'm an Aries !"
We trilled laughter.
"Which leaves me..." Art hesitated, "I guess there's nothing near..."
"Not even close." David soon confirmed.
"Well, my middle name's for my Dad --'Thomas'-- but he's known as 'Tommy'."
"Thank you ! Thank you !" David pounced on the list, "Tomiko ? 'Child of Tomi' ?"
"That will do nicely." Art finished his second carton with a musical slurp on his straw, reached for the third, "That will do nicely."
 
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Does anyone else have general rules they follow when picking out character names (aside from the ones that leap into your head fully named, of course)?

Personally, I have three;

Really common names are out. Things like John and Jim are placeholder for me at best. Likewise with celebrity names. I met a girl I went to school with who had, and I do not jest when I tell you this, a little boy called Liam and a little girl called Kylie. I can't imagine doing that to fictional characters, much less actual children.

I tend to avoid multiple uses of the same initial, at least in characters that interact a lot (unless there's a specific linking of the characters that I want to imply through that naming convention). I usually make a lot of mix-ups writing scenes otherwise, which leads to a lot of extra editing.

Unless it's a good name, and fits well, I avoid ending in "s". I just find the possessive "s's" annoying to look at. It's just me being weird in the head, I think.
 
'Ordinary' character names

Can't remember the book, but the Accidental Hero names his magic sword 'Fred' or some-such ordinary cognomen, to their successive opponents' dismay...

And another excerpt from 'Six of Motley', again with punctuation = raw...

"My Bro' was gutted !" Henry chuckled, "But, hey, it's only a game !"
"Magic sword ?" Pete wondered.
"Nah, just a Blessed Blade." I shrugged.
"Claymore ? Hand and-a half ?"
"An old katana." My left hand fell to a hilt that wasn't there, "Found it gathering dust in the Temple Armoury. I managed to riddle its engraved Runes of Binding--"
"Wow !"
"Yeah, well, they could mean 'Body Count', 'Death Toll', even 'Apocalypse Enumerator', but I read them as 'Kill Bill' and the sword was mine."
 
I named my character before I knew anything about Russian, going for a 'John Smith' type name, something totally inconspicuous, so that when the other character's trying to find him in Moscow, people just keep laughing in his face. I looked up a list of 'most common Russian surnames' and picked his one out... but I've been in Russia for 6 months now and never seen anyone or anything with this name on it! Oh well, I like it. It doesn't matter. Too late to change it now.
 
Re: 'Ordinary' character names

Nik said:
Can't remember the book, but the Accidental Hero names his magic sword 'Fred' or some-such ordinary cognomen, to their successive opponents' dismay...
Click to expand...
In Chalker's 'Dancing gods" series Joe (the barbarian)'s sword was called Irving. That the one?
 
Personally I actually have a little disdain for people who use name generators or websites or such to come up with their characters' names. I make a 180 away from such things.


A story is supposed to come from a person's head and to use names that the author hasn't come up with themselves just seems, to me at least, a form of unacceptable cheating. The only exception I hold to this is commision name-a character based off someone in real life for a very good reason. A classic of example of that would be Piers Anthony's Jenny Elf character in Xanth.


Other than that, try to wrack your brain for any name you can think of, even if it is a common, every day name, just don't look through websites, or-worse yet-other books. Same with a new baby. :)
 
Heck, the Final Draft screenwriting program has a name-generator built into it. You can type it the first few letters and it pops up a list.
I came up with the name Whatsin , John Whatsin...
What's in a name ?
 
oh my, my character names are all john smith names... i will change them of course. If i can think up some exciting names!
 
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