A celebration of names!

wandergirl · Dec 29, 2008

So how do you choose your characters' names?

Do they pop into your head? (poof. MAGIC!) Do you labor over them, painstakingly crawling through baby names books, the white pages in the phone book, old yearbooks? Do you research meanings on babynames.com? What are your favorite sites?

Have you ever had a name all picked out, only to encounter a published book that used it first? Is there a famous character name you hate? Or a naming faux-pas? Names you were going to give your firstborn, but instead gave a character?

I want to know all your stories and secrets*. Let's rejoice in names!

*Full disclosure: yes, I'm name-picking for book 3.

MLC23 · Dec 29, 2008

Well for my current book, I did look up my names with online baby name sites. I was looking for specific origins to my names and it really mattered to me. I found the name of my main character which I love. The more I use it the more I love it--but it's not a name I would give to my child.

Other names just kind of stand out to me, or the character already has a name when I picture him or her.

Claudia Gray · Dec 29, 2008

I think about what names their parents might realistically have chosen. It tells me a lot about the parents, which in turn tells me a lot about the character.

jvc · Dec 29, 2008

I call all my main characters Jack at the start of a story/novel until something better comes to me. Sometimes nothing comes and they remain as Jack.

Madisonwrites · Dec 29, 2008

In my most complete WIP, my sister provided me with nearly all the names (a fact she's not really proud of since she's not into fantasy anymore). I found my villian's name, Arvil, in the phone book. I have adapted actual names, twisting them around to create a new one. For example, out of the name "Frieda" I got the name "Eda".

But normally I type on the computer a whole jumble of letters and see which ones can make since. I also have an old computer game "Logical Journey of the Zoombinis" and they have some REALLY wacky names that I draw inspiration from.

For a manga I am working on, several of the names are Japanese verisons of English names. For example, Crystal is Kurisutaru and Dekusutaa is Dexter.

That's about all I have for now. Long live the names!

Red.Ink.Rain · Dec 29, 2008

Marcella Lucille Beauregard - I had to search for that one a little bit, but once I found Marcella it screamed at me. Marcella, and "Marc" for short. It was sort of like she was in my head and said, "That one!"

Jake was just...Jake. From the beginning. As was Vanessa. And Dr. Halberg. *shrug*

For my recent story, I had to go hunting for Kai and Audrey's names, but once I found them, they were quite insistent about them.

Dear gosh, I sound so crazy.

darrtwish · Dec 29, 2008

A few of my characters share the first name of people I've met briefly(and are no longer in contact with) but have a pretty big impact on my life, and share some of the personality traits, but that's a rare occurrence.

Most of the names come to me just randomly. Sometimes, if I know the parents are really big on their ethnic heritage, I'll go searching for names that are of that origin.

jmascia · Dec 30, 2008

Actually, it depends. In a fantasy novel, I usually make up the names, but in a realistic one, I am actually more likely to go searching the baby name websites. Because every name has a meaning, you can usually search those meanings and come up with an appropriate name that fits the character.

Ugawa · Dec 30, 2008

My characters choose their names. I don't really put much thought into it, the names just sort of appear by themselves.

If that makes sense.

XX

wandergirl · Dec 30, 2008

Some interesting methods already. Sometimes I'll encounter a name that fits perfectly right away. Other times -- like right now -- I can scan lists of names forever and none seems to fit.

Isn't it weird how a name change can instantly change your perspective on the character? Each one I try on makes her different. Eventually I'll find a persona I can work with. But man alive, name-searching is a phenomenal time-waster.

Another thought -- don't you hate it when some jerk you know/knew ruins a name you otherwise liked?

Horserider · Dec 30, 2008

Well for my first book I decided that I like the Swedish language. So I googled Swedish names and came up with this website:

http://www.babynames.org.uk/swedish-baby-names.htm

That's where all the names came from. Otherwise I use babynames.com and just choose one I like and I think fits the personality of the character or they just pop randomly into my head.

Marzipan · Dec 30, 2008

Finding character names comes really easy to me. I have always read in writer-help books that simple names are the best. What I do is go to the social security database (http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/) and look up the year my character would have been born in, then pick one of the names that would have been popular in that time period.

Some of the names in my WIP: Lily(MC),Cynthia, Darien, Joel, Paul, Brandon, Jared, Chad, Jenifer, Stacy.

I think the simpler a name is the easier it is to remember. Of course for Fantasy and Sci-Fi strange names are perfectly fine as long as they aren't too long and crazy. One thing really bothers me though. When Fantasy writers and Fiction writers put (')s in the middle of a name. For example: Fedria'n. What the crap? Instead of Fedrian.

Zoombie · Dec 30, 2008

First, Pix was short for Pixie, but then I remembered that she was a cyborg, so it became Pixel.

adarkfox · Dec 30, 2008

I like to go the ethnic route and play off that... my fantasy-esque names come to me as simple twists of words/names..... and another favorite is picking a birth name that the character perhaps isn't particularly fond of, and developing a more loved nickname. i.e. Alexandria (so proper and a mouthful, not quite the character's personality) into Lexi (short and sweet - better match for the character)

Blind Writer · Jan 5, 2009

For A Face in the Crowd, I just knew the MC's name had to be Natalie Grey. I"d had the name in mind for a while, and it just fit. Usually, the names just pop into my head, along with the image of the character.

wandergirl · Jan 5, 2009

I just plotted my entire third book before realizing the name I gave one of my (female) protagonists is the same as one of my husband's best (male) friends.
hello androgyny!
I think I'm keeping it, though.

Danger Jane · Jan 5, 2009

Figure out ethnicity of the character, factor in time period of story/demographics of setting, and they pretty much come to me. Usually there's that one name that feels exactly right for the feeling of my character.

sharpierae · Jan 5, 2009

I like using Behind the Name, the history and etymology of first names. Sometimes I use it when considering the ethnicity of the character, sometimes I just kind of know the first letter or sound and it's an easy way to browse.

Redaelf · Jan 5, 2009

ClaudiaGray said:
I think about what names their parents might realistically have chosen. It tells me a lot about the parents, which in turn tells me a lot about the character.

That's awesome!

I've done that sometimes, but not quite as deliberately, I think.

For me, it depends on the project--it's the same with whether I outline/world-build first/research. Any of those things tends to be different depending on what kind of story I'm telling.

Do I totally make them up? Base them off a real language? Use commonly known names with certain connotations to me to create a period or regional feel? (You can say nothing about what the furniture's like for a while if you have a Henry, Louise, and Mary rather than a Jared, Mandy, and Brooklyn.)

The one thing that's always the same, though, is their importance. And yet, I know of people who can go through a whole novel with placeholder names for some of their characters, and pick a name they like at the end...
I put too much weight on names to do that.

KTC · Jan 5, 2009

Mine usually pop into my head. The one I just finished has a character called Dubious Pickles...he literally POPPED into my head. One minute I was minding my own business and the next Dubious Pickles was walking into a five and dime to buy a pair of rubber cowboy boots.

That's basically the way all my characters happen. I never would have thought about using the name Dubious as a character name had it not spontaneously appeared...not to mention combining it with Pickles.

Stew21 · Jan 5, 2009

Edison St. James just came to me with a name, so I know what you mean. If I would have tried to come up with the name it never would have been that one.

Rachel · Jan 5, 2009

It is different every time for me. One ms, I had every name picked out (I was young and they were all the same names as people I knew

) and more recently a short story was written with the MC's name being "insert name here" through the whole thing. I never found one for him, poor thing.

But for my more successful attempts, I go with character, actually. Luke, for instance, was a character name because something about it is "strong" and yet a little uncommon for me. Then I had a character named Photini because she was Lebanese (it sounds pretty when you say it out loud

). When I come up with a character I find a name to fit it. Usually it is the first thing that "pops" into my head. Otherwise I ask my mom. :tongue

peachiemkey · Jan 5, 2009

For me, naming characters is one of those things that sounds super fun when I'm starting out, but by the end I'm desperately annoyed. Usually I'll have one character's name down right away, and the rest will take forever. I struggled past the fact that it's the name of a current Disney Channel starlet and settled on "Demi" for my current MC because it means 'half' in French, and she's 'half' of a very important relationship. Erm, or something.

kellysarah · Jan 6, 2009

I use the top ten lists for around the time they would have been born, and scroll down until I find one that fits. My WIP MC is called Amber.

Maprilynne · Jan 7, 2009

Both. One of my favorite name stories is from my upcoming book, Wings. I had the names all picked out and was writing along . . . and kept writing my male MC's name wrong. Like, not just spelled wring, an entirely different name. His name was originally Glen and I kept writing David. (See! Not even close!!) Eventually I was mis-writing David more often than I was writing Glen, so clearly this character wanted to be named David. i did a searcha dn replace and everything went smoother after that.

A celebration of names!

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