Tell me, authors, why you pick certain names for characters..

[Gramm838]

I've just come across a book which has the main character's name as Michael Longbow...FFS, can't people think up a routine name like Orel Herschiser or something (yes, I am a baseball fan LOL)!

At least Toby Frost uses (Isambard) Smith for his hero's name, but I wonder if sometimes people come up with the name first then write the story around the name

Grrrr

 

[Boneman]

I admit, I struggle with names, but invariably have a first name before I start. My MC in my current wip is Brydon Matthias - I like Nell Bryden, and my wife has a cousin whose surname is Matthias and he complained he'd never seen his surname used in fiction (still hasn't, yet...)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

My earliest names go back so far I don't know where they came from. But Kare was a nod to Kerr Avon, who I loved when I was a kid.

My Inish characters were dreamed up for the 75 word contest the idea evolved from and then Alc said he thought John Dray was a good sci fi name, and that nailed it. Plus - and this may seem odd to non-natives of my silly land - I didn't want the religion of the two main characters to be obvious to NI readers as I wanted to write a book about Ulster that didn't use religion as a point of reference. And over here, names often indicate cultural background. I think only one beta picked up that nuance. (Alc, again; good with names. And works in NI )

The Waters names are coming from the air. Oh, and Leda in Galaxy was named after a moon of Jupiter cos her parents were space explorers.

 

[Montero]

I do try and pick a wide selection - as in make sure all the characters have different sounding names so they are not easily confused with each other.
Other than that, if have several cultures then try to have distinctive sets of names so you can tell which culture/country characters are from.

 

[Ursa major]

I dislike names that represent the character of the... er... character. Were these characters' parents prescient? Doesn't it just keep reminding the reader that it's fiction?


As to my characters' names, there is a naming scheme, but the choice of which character gets which name is entirely random; except, of cource, where family connections are involved or the origons of a character may be important (so there'd be the equivalent of choosing between Smith, Schmidt, Faber, Kowal/Kowalski, etc if the character (or their forebears) came from the equivalent of the British Isles, Germany, the Roman World, or Poland).

 

[Montero]

I dislike names that represent the character of the... er... character. Were these characters' parents prescient? Doesn't it just keep reminding the reader that its fiction?

Ooh yes. I remember my English master getting excited by the names Dickens came up with for his characters - like Mr Gradgrind - being suggestive of character.

 

[Mouse]

Is this a book type question or a writing type question?

Yes, there are some crappy names in published books. I mean, really crappy. Sometimes I won't read a book if I don't like a character's name. (I'm fussy like that).

As for my own stuff, I think I pick normal names. I try to think what the parents would name their kids. I read something the other day that said if you want to bring attention to a certain character, give them an alliterative name. I realised that I'd done that subconsciously as my 'bad guy' as it were, has the initials LL. Dun dun duuuuuuun.

 

[Gramm838]

I've just remembered another really bad use of a name - in a book by Jeff Edwards called Dome City Blues, which in the end actually turned out to be not too bad, the main character is a hard boiled LA detective called...David Stalin.

I mean, come on!

 

[Ursa major]

Inspector Rebus isn't brilliant either, really. The author didn't even know Rebus was a valid surname when he named the character.

Later, Ian Rankin met a Rebus, apparently a Scot with Polish ancestry (who may have lived in Fife, though my memory of hearing this isn't clear).

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Socrates Lorenzo was my first character to name himself. My current two main ones are Ian Black and Wilfred Fischer - again they arrived full dressed with their names in place. For main characters I very rarely know where the name came from.

 

[thaddeus6th]

I try to have them be coherent (so people from one country have similar names). Sort of cheated on that, with names/languages in my 'serious' books being more or less identical to real ones (French, English etc), although the Kuhrisch have both German and Gothic names.

I also like, for English ones, names that sound old-fashioned but still not entirely alien. Alfred, Francis, Roderick and that sort of thing. For comedy, some of the names I used were serious (Sir Edric, Lysandra) and some were silly (Lady Honeybush, Grog Bel-Rot).

 

[David Evil Overlord]

A good source of names is googling "baby names". You can find websites that divide names by gender, nationality, and even the most popular names used in a given year.

There are also sites that give the meanings of names. I believe a lot of Japanese anime gives characters names that mean something about the character (like the archer named Longbow, mentioned upthread).

In my current super hero WIP, there are a couple of cultural clues in two main characters names (they are brother and sister, one quarter Japanese, the other quarters are...interesting..). But I try not to make it too blatant.

 

[Darkchild130]

My protagonist is called Damon Wright because it is simple.
The name comes from the names of two of my friends.

 

[Ursa major]

I can see a book title now:

Wright's Wrongs
​

 

[ralphkern]

Hmmm I found names tricky. I actually went through my facebook list to make sure I wasn't naming characters after people i knew which they may then divine some meaning from if you follow.

In the end I chose to name my two lead male characters after my nephews and used a random name generator i found online for the rest, as long as they wern't names of people I knew other than a few nods at people who have helped which I promised to do.

 

[hopewrites]

I once wrote a godaweful love story that was actually a bit of fan-fic about people in my gaming guild.
Had more fun twisting everyones name about so they would know who they were without anyone else guessing, than I did writing the actual story.

The thing about character names that give away bits about the character Longbow, Mace, Smith even, are usually ones chosen by the character themselves.
You go to a new place where no one knows you and someone asks you your name, why wouldnt you take the chance to remake you life in the fashion you want it.
Those characters who cant remake themselves with a simple name change, and stay stuck with the names they were born with, I do think what their parents would have thought, what hopes they would have tried to instill in their child, what skills they would have encouraged and even pushed because they themselves valued them.

My favorite line about names comes from The Scarlet Ibis. I think that's its name. we read it in primary school. Narrated by the older brother of two young boys, his first comment about his brother is about his name. How his parents must have thought his brother was going to die young because the name they picked was so old and stuffy it could only look good on a grave stone, not the sort of thing a person could actually wear.
He then goes on to tell us how he picked his brothers nickname when he did manage to survive long enough to be a toddler and prove that his name didnt fit him yet.

It stuck in my head though, that what ever name I give a thing; Character, pet, or person. It will have to wear that name where ever it goes. And spend its life trying to live up to it, or change it.
For me, names are like fate. Something your handed and then have to deal with for the rest of your life.

 

[nightdreamer]

Sometimes the name comes really early, as though it's meant to be, but more often I just pick something that rings a bell somehow. Probably most of them come out in the pre-writing stage where the idea is still developing in my head. Almost never do the human names have any particular meaning -- they're just names. In one case, it works out that 'Lesley' is cool because it is similar to certain alien names and it sometimes gets pronounced 'Less-lee,' but I can't remember if the name or the connection came first.

On the rare occasion that I get stuck, or when I need a name from a particular real-earth culture, I'll use Scrivener's built-in name generator. It's pretty cool, but the one problem I have is that it treats all names with equal probability, so you might have to run it a few times to get even English names that you've actually heard before. It's great for coming up with obscure ones.

Alien and fantasy names are a little more work, because I have to figure out what their culture is like, what sounds they can actually pronounce, and what kind of meaning they attach to them. Triknikanthy and Elagdoob come to mind. Kyattoni names are fun. As above, "Triknikanthy", "Trik", "Kanth" and "Kanthy" all have different meanings, and you'd better not use the wrong one!

 

[reiver33]

Most of my characters have run-of-the-mill names, like John Balfour or Victor Morgan. However my most recent pairing are Rudi Hess (cyborg private detective) and J.J. Bones (psychotic human). In the novella trilogy I wanted a 'Southern gentleman' name for the gumshoe, hence Lucas Helath.