Naming Characters

[E.G. Gammon]

I have two questions.

1) Is it wrong to name a character after yourself? My writing name is E.G. Gammon, and in my novel series, there are twin boys, one whose name is my first name (the "E") and the other whose name is my middle name (the "G"). Their last name is different from mine. I was just wondering what everyone thought of me doing that. Should writers not do this? Does it seem tacky?

and...

2) How do you name your characters? Do you do deep searches to find the perfect name with the perfect meaning? Or do you just pick a name that sounds right? What about last names (the hardest things for me to come up with)? What kind of material do you get names from? I use a baby names book for first names and a phone book for last names. Any one have any other suggestions?

[maestrowork]

1) Are they major characters? If so, it can be tacky (especially if you're not using a pen name). If they're minor characters, I don't see the problem -- kind of a "Hitchcock-style" nod to the author. I have a VERY minor character with my middle name in my book.


2) I try to find some meaning, but not like flipping through baby names books... I go by what the name sound/mean to me. It's more about feelings. I use common names a lot, so I kind of like to choose names that conjure certain images/meanings...

[James D. Macdonald]

The names I use all have meaning.

Sometimes the meaning is just meaning for me.

As to naming a character after yourself, check this Google link (http://www.google.com/search?q=mary+sue+fan+fiction).

[TMA-1]

I try to come up with names that stand out or are easy to remember. Sometimes an alliteration can be good, or a name that is funny. Once or twice I look for a name with a specific meaning, but it's not often.

[maestrowork]

I think if you deliberately name your characters based on their literal or supposed meaning (such as the WARRIOR is called Raymond because Raymond means "the mighty protector") then you're probably going a little too far.

[Roger J Carlson]

In my first book, I chose names at random, thinking I could change them later. I discovered that I couldn't. If I tried to change their names, they didn't feel like the same characters. I had one character named Ray Curtis who is a police officer. Then I realized that was the name of the character on Law and Order. I created another character Mark Rogers which was a pen name my friend Mark and I were going to use if we ever co-wrote anything. Rogers started out as a good guy, but half-way through the book, I decided he would be better as the bad guy. Now I was stuck with a bad guy using a name I really liked for a good guy. Didn't matter, I was stuck.

My second book is a fantasy and I started naming people at random there too. I got a horrible mish-mash of names. There wasn't any consistancy. So I forced myself to rename them with a culturally consistant naming convention. I used a variant of modern Scandinavian for ordinary people.

I wanted something a bit unique for the wizard's names (they choose a new name when they become wizards). For them, I found a list of Old Norse names. I matched their names to their abilities or "familiars" (animal companions). So I came up with names like: Hrafna (raven) and Farskauga (distant eye). The problem is that I still think of the characters by their old names.

Next time, I'm going to put thought into the names before I start.

[Tileus]

I usually just take time to let my mind go blank, at some point, my concentration will be broken by a sound or a stray thought, which acts like a starting gun for my brain, and I keep running loops around my grey matter till something suitable comes up.

My problem is that too often I get too caught up in making names that "Fit" to the genre, and forget that even in a world of magic or a world 2000 years ahead of our own, generic people names are still gonna be acceptable, depending on how the writer wants to build the world.

Take for example two characters in my current work, Gerin, and Torvald. Both males, both fantasy-ish names. Of course, my other main concern is hoping I haven't unintentionally ripped off another author's character names, thinking they were original heh.

[Roger J Carlson]

Take for example two characters in my current work, Gerin, and Torvald. Both males, both fantasy-ish names. Of course, my other main concern is hoping I haven't unintentionally ripped off another author's character names, thinking they were original heh.Ha! Torvald is the name of a character in a short story I wrote. Thief!

No--wait. That one's not published yet.
Carry on. :ROFL:

[Birol]

I think if you deliberately name your characters based on their literal or supposed meaning (such as the WARRIOR is called Raymond because Raymond means "the mighty protector") then you're probably going a little too far.

I've been known to do this. Of course, I've also been accused of going a little to far, too, and over thinking things. My writing group accuses me of that quite a bit. Maybe there's something to what they've been saying? I wonder what would happen if.... ;)

Sometimes it helps me find the right name. Other times, the characters come to me and when they feel comfortable they say, "I am...." And that is who they are.

[scribbler1382]

There's a helluva lot of names in the world to necessitate using two that your parents came up with, IMO. It's not that it's necessarily wrong, but why take a chance (any chance) that an editor will be put off by it? Granted, you could end up picking the names of the two guys he found sandwiched around his girlfriend that one black day in college, but you have to mitigate your faux pas' when you can, I believe.

As far as how I pick names, anytime I've gone to great lengths to research names and their meanings, surfed the net for hours and found foreign names with secret meanings only I could appreciate, that project invariable never got past the planning stage. I find the best approach for most names is to relax and start writing. When it's time to say/type a character's name, it tends to just come to me from knowing the character and the situation.

As with everything, there's probably a sane middleground between what I know is wrong and what I actually do. :)

Cheers,

-- Marty

[DixieChic]

My poor characters . . . the poor, poor babies have been renamed so many times that they're probably as confused as I am.

I am terrible at choosing names! I know deep-down that this is just another procrastination technique (get stuck, so instead of moving forward, spend 45 minutes trying to rename "Daphne Hoodspinkle") but I find myself doing it over and over.

When I do finally find a name that works, it's a completely accidental "A-ha!" moment, and I feel much better. It might be something I misheard on CNN, the name of someone's cat, a random juxtaposition of words. I find names fascinating, but I too might be overthinking this a bit.

(Still not sure that Daphne Hoodspinkle is going to work, though . . .)

[SeanDSchaffer]

I've seen some of them, and they almost always have Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy playing Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. And they're almost always supposed to be fictional characters. They were popular in their day, and still have a following now I suppose. But IMHO, they just don't work, using their own names as their character names.

I believe Abbott & Costello did this too in a few of their movies, but honestly I've found that, though the movies were very well made and the stories well told, I couldn't get past the fact that the actors were playing themselves in sometimes very bizarre circumstances for early-to-mid-20th Century people--there was one O&H movie that I cannot for the life of me remember the title to, that was a complete fantasy and was in fact quite scary, where O&H played O&H. To me personally, it makes no sense.

Anyway, that's just my humble take on this. I hope it helps.

[Albedo of Zero]

I like to put my characters into a room before the story starts and they introduce themselves to each other... I figure they cant be wrong.

[three seven]

In my first book, I chose names at random, thinking I could change them later. I discovered that I couldn't. If I tried to change their names, they didn't feel like the same characters.

Next time, I'm going to put thought into the names before I start.
That sounds familiar. I gave a random name I don't even like to a character who was only supposed to have a walk-on part. Said character subsequently turned out to be pivotal to the plot and appears in ever single chapter. Tried to change the name, but everything else just sounded weird. Harumph.

[mdin]

1) Is it wrong to name a character after yourself?


This is my opinion--

Don't do it. It is tacky, and you'll be Mary Sued by your readers. Subtle nods to family, friends, yourself I think are cool, but anything obvious would likely knock the reader right out of the story.

[brinkett]

My main characters come with their names--they arrive and say, "hello, I'm so-and-so." For minor/throwaway characters, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. Sometimes I look around the room for ideas. One of the minor characters in my last work has the surname "Rafferty" because there was a Gerry Rafferty CD sitting on my desk when it came time to name her.

[arrowqueen]

I couldn't bear to write myself into one of my stories/novels. I can't even write in the first person, without gritting my teeth.

I'm Scottish. I think it's something to do with Calvinism.

(There are even too many 'I's in that post for my liking.)

[CJWilkes]

I just read a book by a woman named Carol who named one of her characters (not the main character, but close connection to...) and I found it distracting. Just a thought.

My process for naming the characters in my book is the same as naming my babies. I think about the names and certain names sound good for a character or baby, having good meanings or sounds appealing to me, and others just sound tacky or bad or evil, reguardless of the meaning. Names have meaning to each individual. If a name sounds mean or bad I have an evil character, I then just match the name in my book with all the characters.

Another thing that comes to mind is the time period you are writing for. I am not sure if the name Jadin was used in the 1700's, but now adays you don't hear the name Gaye being given to baby girls too often. Words and names change frequently. A little research always helps. Then you also have to consider nationalities.

In my current novel, I deal with Hawaiian, Japanese, and Utahns... I research Japanese names and find the ones that sound good to me. These are all my babies and they deserve appropriate names like my own physical babies :).

BTW - Let me introduce you to my babies in my pic...

Miriam Shaori - age 3
Jared Thomas - age 1
Nathanya Siani - age 1

Best wishes in your character naming. I would be interested to see what you decided.

[Sarita]

My character names usually come to me at some point or another while writing the story. Until then, I do what Uncle Jim suggests and give them a label: BESTBUDDY or PROTAG HUSBAND. But I really don't feel like I'm writing them correctly until they have a name. Once they have a name, there's no going back. It would be like having a 5 year old and telling them they're no longer going to be called Sam, we're now calling them Chris.

If nothing is coming to me, I like to do this:

GOOGLE (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-18,GGLD:en&q=baby+names)

And pick out some unique ones.

EDIT: Oh and I like to ask my sister. I say: Lola, give me a name for a guy, mid 30's. And she'll say: Dan McShea. She's good. I could loan her out for names if you ever need one. ;)

[Aquilegia]

In regard to the first question, for me personally, unless I knew what the E.G. in the author’s name stood for, I wouldn’t even notice. However if it’s noticeable, I do rather agree with Tilda that people might think it’s autobiographical (well, not that you’re twins, of course.) And as Scribbler1832 said, if it would annoy an editor and you can change the names, maybe it’s better to change them.

As for the second question, for naming my own characters, I sometimes have to do a bit of looking through lists of names (eg. phone book) and such until I find one the character approves of. That's usually only for major ones, though.

I spend more time on family names. And might I add :Lecture: , it really bugs me when an author gives no thought to the national origin of a family name. For example, for me, it would be very unrealistic if Russian characters didn’t at least notice when another character is named, say “Berdzenishvili” (I mean, aside from the fact that it looks unpronounceable, it’s also Georgian, which has social consequences). What I’m saying is the family name represents a person’s ethnic background, which for most people is very important. In a lot of settings, the character’s (person’s) family name affects what others think about him or her. If you just pick family names on the basis of "sounding pretty" and don't look into their meanings, you could end up with some rather unrealistic social situations.

Those are my thoughts, anyway.

-- Marie

[maestrowork]

IHMO, not only is naming your major characters after yourself distracting to the readers, it also makes them think you're an "egotistical pig." What kind of narcissists would put themselves in as a major character?

[Jamesaritchie]

I have two questions.

1) Is it wrong to name a character after yourself? My writing name is E.G. Gammon, and in my novel series, there are twin boys, one whose name is my first name (the "E") and the other whose name is my middle name (the "G"). Their last name is different from mine. I was just wondering what everyone thought of me doing that. Should writers not do this? Does it seem tacky?

and...

2) How do you name your characters? Do you do deep searches to find the perfect name with the perfect meaning? Or do you just pick a name that sounds right? What about last names (the hardest things for me to come up with)? What kind of material do you get names from? I use a baby names book for first names and a phone book for last names. Any one have any other suggestions?

I wouldn't name a character after myself in any way a reader could detect. With a couple of exceptions. I did, once, give a protagonist my name, both first and last, because the protagonist was me, and the story was about me, a midlist western novelist on a midlist book tour. Every character in the story was a real person, including the bad guy, and giving the protagonist my name was the only way to make the story work the way I wanted it to work. It went over very well with the editor and readers, but only because that particular story demanded it.

It was an experiment, and I think it worked pretty well, but I can't think of a way to repeat it. Don't think I'd want to, anyway.

On one other occasion, I pulled an Alfred Hitchcock and gave the real me a minor appearance in a short story. Not a flattering one, however. This one was done for pure humor, and the rules are different where humor is concerned.

I have seen a couple of times when a writer using a pseudonym slipped his real name into the story somehow, but usually to poke fun at that "other" hack writer.

"Mary Sue" characters are idealized, and are a bad idea simply because they're bad characters. They would be bad characters, even if they weren't stand ins for the writer.

By and large, I think it's a bad idea to name characters after yourself unless you have a good reason for doing so, and unless you can avoid idealizing the character. But Mary Sue characters are still Mary Sue characters, even without the writer's name attached.

As for how I name my characters, most bear the names of real people I know or have known. Including Billy Martin, one time manager of the Yankees. I simply pick names I like, period. I couldn't care less about the meaning behind the name. If I like the name, I use it.

[KimJo]

I almost always have my characters before I have my plots, or at least when the plot is at its very beginning stage. I can't even do an outline without names for the characters. Sometimes the name comes with the character, as someone else said; sometimes I have to think about it. And once I start writing, I can't change the name, because I get to know the character too well. It would be like changing one of my daughters' names!

The main character in my YA novel inspired by a guy who was my best friend for many years, but since my friend and I are no longer in touch, I didn't want the character's name to be anything like his. I named the character Topher, because I liked the way it sounded. It wasn't until well after I'd finished the novel (and several revisions) that I realized Topher's last name was my friend's middle name. I left it; no other name would work.

[PattiTheWicked]

In naming characters, sometimes, their names just ARE. Brynne Marlette was always Brynne Marlette, and Kieran Ash was always Kieran Ash. On the other hand, once in a great while I'll name someone deliberately as a shout-out to a friend or family member, but I try to keep it discreet. I did name a character after my great great grandmother, and another (minor) character seems to have my middle name as his last name.

As for naming characters after myself, that might feel weird. What if I decided they were jerks? I do admit to naming a character "Trish" -- I'm a Patricia, but no one calls me Trish, I'm just Patti, so it works out well enough.

The one thing I try to do is if the name is unusual or exotic, make sure that its meaning isn't something weird. I named a character Cayden, because I liked the sound of it, but I checked to make sure it didn't mean "wussyboy" or "impotent" or anything dreadful. Turned out it means "spirit of battle", which was pretty cool. I do remember reading a perfectly awful romance novel once where the hero's name was something pseudo-Celtic sounding, and I looked up the name and it meant "he of no stamina" or something. Made me laugh for days.

[skylarburris]

Well, Jane Austen certainly had a lot of Janes in her novels, and no one faulted her for it. I suppose it depends how common your name is. I certainly wouldn't name any of my characters Skylar.

I often use family names for last names. For first names, I often use a name with a meaning that reflects the character, either through its actual meaning, or through association with a famous figure in history. For instance, in my recent novel, I name a man Aaron because in a sense he serves as a mouthpiece for his brother, who has chosen a quiet calling in life.

[Jonny Ryan Mac]

It's often thought that random will do, or sometimes we throw our non writing friends a bone by including them in the story itself. It happens a lot and should be done just for giggles every now and them.

What gets old is names like Afger'iani-an, or Tyulaman, as they are hard to pronounce and really dont pass any kind of power to the reader. Thats really a SF/F cliche and it gets old.

Maybe you could look up other languages, find out what sword of god means in arabic perhaps, (Salhadin.) Now thats a cool name, used, but cool. It means something that you can show someone, something that the average reader has no idea came obout like that.

Not to discount the long and puncuated Fantasy names weve all growm acustom to over the years, but it is cool to find a small and simple name that reflects so much energy, like "Frodo" Perhaps.

Find what works for you, i think that using the different languages as culture bases and chossing from those piles is fun. Never forget the knicknames.

Look at me, jonathan, but nobody calls me that. They call me 'Mac'. Maybe that will help you in your naming quest.

best of luck

[E.G. Gammon]

In response to the whole "naming the characters after myself" thing, I have now changed their names, to names I think I can live with. When I originally gave them those two names, I was naming them after my father (who I am named after - I'm a Jr...). My Dad had this Jekyll and Hyde thing going on in his personality. He was such a great person and always sacrificed things to help other people, but if you got him angry, he turned into a psycho! He he. So, I used that to create these twins, one good and one evil. But, no matter what my defense, even if I named the characters after my Dad, people would still think I named them after myself - which I guess I did unintentionally. But, it doesn't matter. I have changed their names and I am happy with the choices I made.

[write4details]

Is it wrong to name a character after yourself?

By no means. There are novels in which the main character has the same name as the author. Kinky Friedman's detetive stories for one example. And other characters have names of Kinky's friends, like Chinga Chavez and Willie Nelson.

In Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegutt appears as a character.

A couple of people have used their own name for main characters, but the characters don't resemble them..usually for humorous effect.

[TheNightTerror]

The farthest I've gone with naming characters after myself is giving them the name I wish I had. And I'll only do it if the character is supposed to be like me. But, I felt pretty stupid when I gave the 'me' character the last name I wish I had, (my mother's maiden name) because I'm going to be changing my last name to it when I'm old enough. :o I realized way too late what I did, since the me character was one of the major characters, and had a brother, so I was stuck.

[MadScientistMatt]

In Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegutt appears as a character.

And, of course, there's the way Clive Cussler has started appearing as himself in his own books, usually showing up in a moment when he can help his hero (who also seems to bear a deliberate resemblance to the author) out of a jam. I usually find this very amusing when it happens. I suppose this mostly works because Cussler's books are so over the top anyway.

[Julie Worth]

The first names that occur to me are the right ones. Nine times out of ten, it’s impossible to come up with a better one. Anything else sounds contrived. As for naming a character after myself, I am a character!

[Roger J Carlson]

And, of course, there's the way Clive Cussler has started appearing as himself in his own books, usually showing up in a moment when he can help his hero (who also seems to bear a deliberate resemblance to the author) out of a jam. I usually find this very amusing when it happens. I suppose this mostly works because Cussler's books are so over the top anyway.I think it's important to note, however, that a recognized author and genius is able to get away with things that a novice would not. Especially if it is outside the norm. I'm not saying that naming a character after yourself is necessarily one of those things. It's just that I get nervous when an inexperienced author says: "Well, Heinlien did it in..." in order to defend some odd writing.

[MadScientistMatt]

Yes, that's true... Clive Cussler can get away with that not because it makes for good literature, but because he's Clive Cussler. And because I'd have to say that his books do not depend on believability to be fun.

[katiemac]

I named one of my characters after my full name (I use a nickname). It's really quite perfect for the character, and it just sort of happened one day when I was writing a conversation between two other characters. One of them happened to use her name (mine) for the first time and I went, "Hmm... I guess that's her name, then."

Well, turns out, this character is actually the ideal, "perfect" woman as opposed to the main female protag. If that's not a cause for changing her name, I don't know what is.

I'm working through the second draft and I still haven't found a good replacement name for her, but I'll have to find one eventually.

[Mistook]

When I name characters, I want the actual string of letters to work like a kind of hyroglyphic - a visual symbol that is distinct from those of other characters. I also like the sound of the name to... not conflict with the personality.

For instance, I wrote a scene a while back where a local police cheif and an FBI special agent are working together on a case. The cheif is out of shape, fat, a bit lazy, high blood pressure, but none of that is ever stated outright. The reader gets that to some degree by his actions - he's usually sitting down. He's never far from a hotdog or a donut. He goes through extremes of being very laid back, and very short tempered. But his name is "Cheif Stover", or "Stover".

I picked that name because it conjures up these images of a pot-bellied stove, and the things cooked in a stove, which have gone into his fat belly, and because it's easy to read and remember. You won't confuse "Stover" with any other name in the book.

The FBI agent's name is "Knox Dunham". He's a cultured guy, educated, but that doesn't mean he won't Knox you around like an ox if you get out of line.

They need to question a character who is intelligent, but kind of slimey and deceptive. He's on the cowardly end of the spectrum, and can't escape his own mediocrity. His name is "Joe Nide". Most of the time he's simply called "Nide". He's mild, yet snide, and by women he's denied. He's got some scruples, but he let's them slide.

[maestrowork]

Funny. With all that attention going toward naming our characters (hidden meaning, symbolism, etc.), probably only the authors (we) notice. They help us write the characters, but these meanings, etc. probably just go over the reader's head unless you make the meanings clear to them.

[TashaGoddard]

Huh. I was planning on starting a thread about this, but of course there already is one. (There usually is, as we all seem to come up against similar issues/problems!)

I've been concentrating lately on character-building, because I've felt that I haven't really known my characters well enough to write from their POVs. I've created a Word file (what I really wanted to do was set up a database, or maybe even create a Java app, but that would have just been so much procrastination!) with little snippets about the main characters, which have then run off into snippets about some of the more minor characters. And this has had to include giving the minor characters names. All the major characters have had names for quite a while now, and I honestly don't recall where these names came from. Wherever they came from, they are quite definitely the right names. But naming the minor characters has been a little more difficult. I almost gave some of the same surnames, even though they were completely unrelated. Some of them came quite easily and their backgrounds/problems seemed to kind of flow from discovering their names. Others weren't so easy. For a couple of them, I sat staring at the computer screen for about 10 minutes before coming up with a name and then got annoyed with myself, because surely that time would have been better spent actually doing some writing!

There are two names that I haven't found yet. One is the brother of one of the main characters. He is very important to her, but not too important to the story; except in terms of his putting up stumbling blocks for her that take her mind off other things. I did almost have a name for him, but then realised that this main character had the same first name as my friend's daughter and that I'd given the brother the name of one of her sons. Probably not a good idea. One is just a coincidence; two might make her wonder what I think about her parenting skills!

The other name I don't have is the bad guy. In fact, now I think about it, I don't have any names for any of the minor bad guys, either, but I thought I'd probably come up with them as I go along. I think this may be down to some kind of fear of getting inside the bad guy's head too much. But I really need to do that. I know what he does, but I don't know why. And there's got to be a reason, even if only I need to know (though I think probably the readers also need to know). At the moment he's just some some ethereal being who appears now and again, but I really need to know more about him. I think coming up with a name may well help in finding out more about him.

So, does anyone else find coming up with names for 'good guys' easier than for 'bad guys'? Or the other way round? Any tips? I think calling him Ted or Fred might be a bit too obvious, even if his surname wasn't Bundy or West.

OK. Off to do some actual writing now, before I start work for the day (very late - but it is a Bank Holiday weekend).

[Sharon Mock]

I came up with the antagonist's name about two days after I absolutely needed it because I was at the scene where he first appeared.

On the other hand, one of my primary characters came pre-named, but with a generic default name. I was never entirely satisfied with it, and I finally changed it after this revision. That was an extremely uncomfortable process, and I still haven't entirely recovered from it.

Occasionally a character name will just come to me, but I'm rarely that lucky. Naming books are my friend. Also, I've started to put together an onomasticon -- a collection of names, organized in an Excel workbook.

[Lenora Rose]

Early on, I was more careless with names and cultures, which is part of how I have a Hindu character who was named Kevin Down before I knew whwere he'd be from. (It's become his online name, but I still don't know his real name.)

I've become better at planning so that I at least have an idea where my characters are from (Easier in fantasy worlds, sort of... I don't have to worry about accidentally naming a female character "Napkin" in the wrong language, although I do tend to make a quick check if I'm making something up, just in case). But that doesn't always save me when a longtime character or story crops back up.

I got a critique back of one (Non real world fantasy) novel which noted that the names I'd chosen came from a multitude of different real world locales, and had no real connecting characteristics. This was partly true; many of the names were at that point holdovers from very early drafts, and in the early drafts, I either grabbed names at random or based them on the same dream as the plot, or I invented something off the top of my head.

However, the dream plot had gone by the wayside, and now I knew the cultural background of the three or four groups in question.

So I wrote up the list of characters as I had them, based on where they were form, and tried to find connecting links. Certain things quickly came to light - one group tended to Italian-like names, and hey, they came from a sort of late Renaissance place not unlike Europe, so those that weren't following the right sound-rules quickly got changed to do so. Another had short sharp names, and I just cut off syllables, or made nicknames actual names. A third had some names that had the same sound spelled different ways, so i made the spelling consistent in whatever version made them look both un-English and eminently pronounceable. Actual rules showed up as soon as I had two or three names that matched, which made converting the really bad mismatches into something that fit even easier.

In spite of what I'd been told, it was surprising how few changes needed to be made to make the names fit. In some cases, the new names were exceedingly uncomfortable fits - in most, suddenly the connections between groups and people became sharper.

And the one exception, the one oddity and standout, suddenly turned on me and said, "Here's why my name just doesn't fit...." (Well, actually, another character did on his behalf, since he was being coy, but once it was out, you couldn't stop the flood of information behind it.) Turns out to be deeply relevant to his particular arc.

Which is odd, because not only had his name never changed from draft one to that point, but he was originally blatantly named after someone. But the real world reason didn't matter to him; he only knows his people and his time.

However, I've discovered the most uncomfortable truth - few of my major characters seem to come to life until after they've adopted another name, be it a nickname, a disguise, a pseudonym, a cross-cultural mispronunciation, or something else entirely.

I try hard to keep these out of the story, or to make it only a passing reference, or make it easy for the reader to follow some other way, but it seems to happen about the time the character comes to life.

[Shai]

Picking names for characters—or places, or things, or spells, or anything—is a real challenge for me. I think it's the one part of the creative process that I loathe the most. So, I do a lot of what people have already mentioned: make stuff up, search through baby name lists, flip randomly through the phonebook, etc.

Often, my stories don't start to form until the central character shows up in my head and starts running around screaming at me to use him/her in a plot. When this happens the character will already have a name. This makes me very happy.

I can't be comfortable with a character unless their name seems to fit. I have a character at the moment who is a "resurrected" ghost magically ensnared to be a slave. His name is Nabil, but that's not his name. It's almost his name, but it's like I don't quite have the right spelling or the right sound, so this only suffices in the meantime. I still proceed with the story in the hopes that his actual name will surface somewhere along the way.

On the other hand, what do you do when you have two individual characters, and one character starts to want the name that the other character has? It's bad enough trying to find something that seems suitable for each person, but when they try to steal that hard work for themselves...oy!

[TheNightTerror]

I had to name a few characters on the spot in my current story, on two separate days. They're actually horses, and 4 of them have fairly major parts in the story, I figured it would be easier to give them names. The first day, when I was describing one horse, I realized was describing an old mare of mine, Tika, (she had to be put down over the winter sadly enough) and I gave her that name. Then, I named the other Autumn, because she was born in the fall, and she was a chestnut.

Today, there were two more horses added. The first I named Tandy, which is actually the name I gave my first computer. (I got it when I was 4, the monitor brand was Tandy, so I started calling it that.) The last horse, I named Hemi. A good friend of mine was supposed to get a filly who she named Hemi, but it didn't work out. Hemi was badly injured, and had to be put down, just a week before my friend was going to get her. She was heart-broken, she had lost her last horse to colic, and one week before getting her next one . . . :(

I was describing how fast of a runner the filly in the story was, and I started using car engines to compare just how much faster she was than her mother. Ended up comparing the mother to a VW Bug engine and the filly to a Hemi. Both me and the main character latched onto the name, it sounded like something she'd pick to begin with, and since my friend's filly Hemi never got to live, the Hemi in the story will.

Just thought I'd share a little random info. :tongue

[BlueTexas]

I go out of my way to not name characters after people I know, unless the char is inspired by some prominent trait of the person and I don't plan to warp the char into someone unflattering to the person.

And sometimes I'll rhyme a name. If I want to base a char on Grandma Clara, the char name becomes Sarah or Dara or something.

I do pay attention to nationailty in last names. No rabbis named Patrick, for instance. The meanings behind the names usually mean something to me, but not necessarily a meaning that anyone else has to know. It just has to be clear in my own head.

[BlueTexas]

Oh, something interesting I just remembered. In the newest paperback edition of Farenheit 451, Bradbury has an afterword where he talks about char names. He noted that only recently did he realize that Montag is named after a paper manufacturing company, and Faber a pencil company.

[LightShadow]

Only once have I used my own name, and then it was my first name as a last name, and I added an 's'. I usually allow my names to come to me based on the personality of a character. I say, "gosh, he just seems like a Brad." The last name has a little more thought. As in "Brad Muser," who is Sara's muse in my book. Of course, as you can see, muse became Muser. Even fictional geography gets that kind of treatment. "Roseboro," for example, was named as such because of the magnificent rose garden in Sara's backyard. Wayne Peytor (pronounced Pay-tor) because he's a pain. Wayne the pain Peytor. You'll figure it out. Conner is a complainer. Constance is constantly bugging her friends. Damon Mathews because . . . okay, that one I'm not sure how I came up with it. It just sounded right. My name is too mundane for characters, that's why my first name became the last name of a mundane minister. Preacher Douglass.

[reph]

Wayne Peytor (pronounced Pay-tor) because he's a pain....My name is too mundane for characters, that's why my first name became the last name of a mundane minister. Preacher Douglass.
You think Douglas is mundane and Wayne isn't? They feel the opposite way to me.

[vtwordweaver]

The main character in the novel I am working on now is named after a dog that I had to put down a couple of years ago (this dog helped me out of depression so she is really special to me). Actually the character is based on the personality I thought my dog would have if she were a woman. So her name is Gemma and her last name is Labouche (mouth in French! my dog was a barker). So to me, I feel as if my dog lives on. Now my current dog is Zimmer and I don't see any Zimmer characters in my near future.

[black winged fighter]

Sometimes the names just come to me. Other times, especially when it's an MC, I like to have a name that has a significance, an origin, a history behind it.
This site is useful for that purpose: http://www.20000-names.com
It's a list of different names from different countries and their meanings.
I also use freetranslation.com to do quick searches on words that interest me. One of my characters wasn't exactly human, but she had a delicate and sophisticated air about her. Her wild side made me think of her as a 'thing' and when I took that into Portuguese - it just clicked. A delicate sounding name with a whole other meaning.

[Roger J Carlson]

I've discovered it's a good idea to Google the names of major characters. I don't keep up with popular culture much. I named one character Diana Knight. When I Googled that, I discovered there is a Diana Knight that styles herself as a "Fetish and Fantasy Pin-Up Model". Since my character is a wholesome girl detective, I didn't like the association.

I changed her name to Alexandra Knight. This, I discovered, is the "real" name of an obscure Japanese super-hero named Sailor Earth. But since everyone calls my character "Alex" anyway, I decided to keep it.

[KTC]

I've been thinking about a name for my next main character for 2 days. (The outline I mentioned in another thread.) I want the family name to be synonymous with trashy. A good example of such a name, for me, is LES BATTERSBY from Coronation Street. You think of the town trash in that show and you think the Battersbys. Though I don't know if the name comes first or the reputation. Anyway, I've been trying to think of a name like that...something that in itself conjures images. I think it has to be a bit staccato-ish. I've never considered a name so much as I am this time...

[Word Slinger]

I generally write westerns, and sometimes the name is just one that came to me, you know sort of a ring to it? But for many of my characters I base my search for names more on the type of character. Like if they are Kentucky Mountain Hill Boys, I would go to the Bible as most of the names of the children in that time period were biblical names, and I use the short easy to identify with names like Aaron, Jubal, Ely, Noah or Jonah.....if they are an Amish couple or individual I do a web search on information about the Amish and looked at the variety of names and picked a Sirname and Family name from the list that I found, or a combination of my imagination and a family name that hits me, like Simon and Rachel Breymeier.

In my opinion, looking to use a name with a meaning is less important than one that fits the character. You would expect the Mormon to be John Smith, but you would not expect and Asian American in the 1890s to be named John Smith, I give this example only for the extreme simplicity of it, so please no comment. :)

Like I said I write westerns, so throughout my naming of characters you will find names like Will, Trace, Curly, Slim, Beau, Pete, Billy and Davey; names common to the American Cowboy, simple names for sometimes complex characters.

What it boils down to is again the character, ethnicity, location and time period. Pick a name that fits these four base criteria and you will find you and your character will be comfortable with it.

[MarkEsq]

I like having my characters named for specific people, and almost all are. That said, I usually use either a familiar first or last name, not both. My two main characters are named for my twins. The puffy-cheeked, simpering, female secretary is named for a good friend at work (male, with very unpuffy cheeks). Maybe I don't have enough imagination to come up with entirely original names, I hadn't thought of it that way!

[Thekherham]

1) No, I wouldn't name any character after myself, because my real name just doesn't lend itself well as a good character name.

2) The names I pick out for my characters just... sort of come to me. And if you're writing about a family, and you have the last name, the first names seem to come even easier.

[LightShadow]

Often I will invent names, like Corinth, or Banzleton, or Muser in a way that the name fits the story (Corinth has a Biblical feel - Corinthians, Banzelton has a devilish feel - Beezlebub, Muser has a feeling of conflict - muse)

[Jamesaritchie]

Often I will invent names, like Corinth, or Banzleton, or Muser in a way that the name fits the story (Corinth has a Biblical feel - Corinthians, Banzelton has a devilish feel - Beezlebub, Muser has a feeling of conflict - muse)

Corinth is a city in the Bible, which is why Corinthians is Corinthians. I believe it's the same city as Korinthos, the second largest city in Greece during Biblical times. It's also the name of a bunch of cites today, and at least one large shipping port. I've been to three cities with this name, one in Kentucky, one in Texas, and the last in Mississippi.

I've also known two women named Corinth, and have heard about at least a dozen more. It used to be a pretty common name in some parts of the south. I don't know if it still is, or not.

[Mistook]

oops! nevermind.

[Supafly]

Naming characters has always been the hardest thing for me to do when starting a book. For some reason, it just is. I'll sit in front of the computer and think about names that aren't too common, like John Smith, but I don't want names that you've never heard of before, either, unless the context demands for it, like in a fantasy story. Names are important, especially when you can fit a cool or funny nickname on someone that sticks. I've named one character so far after someone, my father, but since the character is referred to by his last name about 90% of the time, it is more subtle.

[Coco82]

Well, it depends on the type of book it is. On my WIP I needed names that fit the time and place (Golden Age Hollywood) and names that I felt fit the characters personalities as well. Yu jsut got to go on gut instinct, what feels right for the circumstances.

[RoadandtheRadio]

My original character name was supposed to be Leven Ivy Benton but when I typed up the name Leven in the computer microsoft word pad and got the familiar red line I decided to click on it and see some of their suggestions. What I found was the word: Levin. I took to it right away and soon Leven Ivy Benton became Levin Ivy Benton.

For some reason I didn't like that name because it didn't feel right. Right away came the name: Levin Elizabeth Benton and ever since then that has been her name. It fits her: An autistic teenager narrating her own story as it unfolded. Even though I haven't written much on her, she has a small popularity for being called, "Real." and, "Not a took for promoting autisim awarness."

[janetbellinger]

One of my characters had the last name of Bentley but she's long since been edited out of the novel.

[Nakhlasmoke]

Character names...this is where all the spam I get comes in handy. Instant mix-n-match names.

[PenelopePitstop]

Sebastien... I just love that name :D

[rfmgil]

One of the things I am doing in writing my first novel is taking names I know and spell them backwards. So far only one person has caught that. I include my name as a character. He (Trebor) isn't a secondary character but I'm not sure if I'd call him a real main character. Does that make sense?

Newbie wannabe writer

[FennelGiraffe]

One of the things I am doing in writing my first novel is taking names I know and spell them backwards. So far only one person has caught that. I include my name as a character. He (Trebor) isn't a secondary character but I'm not sure if I'd call him a real main character. Does that make sense?

Newbie wannabe writer In the world of fantasy and science fiction, certain easy cliches were so overused in the early days that they haven't made it into print in the last fifty or sixty years (outside of pastiche). New writers, unless they are extremely well-read in the genre, are thus unaware of them and often reinvent them.

Reversing the spelling of common names is one of those cliches. Trebor, possibly because it is more pronounceable than most, is frequently used.

[Namatu]

I pick names out of the phone book (usually last names) or from road signs. Whenever I come across an interesting one, I write it down and save it in a file. Usually when I write, names come before any hard plot details. If I don't have the names down when I start writing, the character is bound to be trouble!

[sfecphory]

Steve Erickson (http://www.amazon.com/Our-Ecstatic-Days-Steve-Erickson/dp/074326472X/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_k2a_1_img/102-2494973-4312952) is fond of this sort of meta-fictional device, having once had writer named "Steve Erickson" get killed in one ofhis novels. Philip K. Dick also once appeared in one of his own books, and Kurt Vonnegut is a prime player in Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions." Put yourself into your work, name a character after yourself, or create an anagram of your name to use in your book... it's all fair game. After all, the novel is all "you" anyway.

As far as my own naming conventions go: I use names as place holders when I start. Usually they don't stick. By the end of the second or third revision the character's "true" name will usually emerge on its own. It's usually a name that's right in the way that a real person's name "fits" them. It just works. Sometimes they are alliterative, sometimes symbollic. But always, they have to feel right.

[LadyStylo]

sometimes i just 'collect' names i like, so when the time comes to name a character, i might have some to use. also, a few years ago my sister (who also writes) bought a book at a garage sale called "name your baby" which is full of names in alphabetical order complete with meanings. it comes in handy a lot, and it can be pretty hilarious when people come to our house and see us using it or just see it laying around since we're both still in high school ;)

[badducky]

I name characters after people I know. Especially people who bring me the things I need -- like cappucinos.

One girl who formerly worked for a local cafe made the best I've had in a while, and I named a heroine after the kid.

Basically, names don't matter much until you imbue them with meaning.

[Namatu]

I recently gathered a lot of interesting names out of a name index and saved them for future reference. Handy thing, name indexes! If you can find them. Political yearbooks, in the libraries reference section, may have them.

[badducky]

Also, a useful trick:

When naming your characters, try to keep the first letter of their first name different. That way, your readers will never feel even the slightest confusion.

example:

Kutuzov and Kurasin...

Kutuzov and Curasin...

Same sound, but the changed first letter immediately separates things further between the two characters.

[C.bronco]

I use names of people I know- either their surnames or first names. I gave a Senator my friend's full name. Other characters have names that either fit or I like them. Lists of Catholic saints are fun sources.

[LadyStylo]

Also, a useful trick:

When naming your characters, try to keep the first letter of their first name different. That way, your readers will never feel even the slightest confusion.

example:

Kutuzov and Kurasin...

Kutuzov and Curasin...

Same sound, but the changed first letter immediately separates things further between the two characters.

yeah, that's a good point. i think you should try to make sure they sound different, too. that's one thing that sort of bugged me about Tolkein. He gave characters with fairly similar roles fairly similar names too!
Ex: Eowyn and Arwen
Sauran and Saruman (sorry about the spelling if it's off, can't say I'm a pro LOTR name specialist :D )

[badducky]

There's really no excuse for confusing names in fantasy...

[jamesfelliott]

Lately I've been writing a story about a young man with schizophrenia. Since it's comedic in nature, I find email spam to be a fabulous source of ridiculous names. Like "Constance P. Contumely."

[LadyStylo]

There's really no excuse for confusing names in fantasy...

o, but it's just so much fun. take, for example, Horst from Eragon. Call him Horace all the time just to bug my brother ;) besides, the authors sort of have it coming. i don't even try to pronounce a lot of the names i see in fantasty books, i just try to remember how they look.

As 4 the LOTR comment, i guess in the books it's not so bad, it's the more in the movies where i really notice it.

[jpserra]

I think many of the characters I've worked with named themselves. Somehow, the names emerged naturally. I rarely have trouble assigning one. However, I tend to shy away from use of duplicate names in the stories to prevent confusion.

John Serra

[Sean D. Schaffer]

Several of my characters' names came about simply by my placing my hands on the home row of my typewriter keyboard, and blindly typing without any sense of purpose. Unfortunately, the said names were very hard to pronounce and very difficult to spell. But at least they were easily distinguishable from one another...

[yanallefish]

*g*I actually got to the point this year where I realized I named most of my characters with C or M names, and that drove me crazy. Everytime I did it offhand, I'd end up with a C or an M name. Charlene, Charlotte, Cherryn, Carlos, Carol, Carl, Maxine, Misha, Melissa, Martin, etc etc etc.

So I finally gave up and started a little list on my LiveJournal page of "Possible Character Names" - every time I think of a neat name, or run into one (anyone else watch the credits of movies sometimes solely because of name possibilities?), that one goes in. I might not end up using all of them - but at least I've got a place I can go if I end up in that C or M name rut.:popcorn:

[RJK]

I don't know if anyone has used this site http://www.behindthename.com/random/
but it not only will generate lots of random names, based on nationalities, but if you click on the suggested name, it will provide a brief history of the source of the name.

[Varthikes]

1. I don't see anything wrong with using your name to name your characters. Especially minor characters. And, especially if you break up your name. I've done that, too. My view on it is: you're not the only one in the world with that name. Especially if you have a last name like mine: Hansen. And, there's a group of islands north of Russia with my first and middle names.

I've named my own name for somewhat minor characters. First, middle, and last--split up to different characters in different stories. And, sometimes different variations of the names.

2. I use a number of different methods to name my characters. Generally, I choose a name that sounds good. When I'm naming a major character, I put a little more time into it, looking at the meanings. I use baby name books--I keep two next to my computer, one is multicultural. For surnames,
if I'm looking for a name from a specific origin, I use google. Most of the time, though, I just make something up. Put two words together. Like "crab" and "bush"--"Krabush". Actually, that one inspired by a town in Oregon called "Crabtree", but it's a good example.

[ClaudiaGray]

I generally have to try out several names before I find the one that's right. I know it when I have it, but oftentimes it takes me a while to find it. (I recently ordered some baby-name books to help broaden my choices!) Also, I find that I really need to know my characters' names before I can get fully into them, so it's a pretty important step in my process.

I don't worry about what names mean, very much. I do try to think about the family background, era, location, etc. of this person's parents and to choose a name that fits that background (or, if it's something unusual or unexpected, I figure out why they would have this name).

Once I really like a name, but before I'm 100% sold on it, I Google just to make sure I haven't inadvertently named my hero after Australia's most notorious serial killer or something.

I wouldn't use my own name for a major character -- it suggests overidentification, and even if that is not true, readers will probably assume it is and roll their eyes. In my WIP Delilah, there is a character with a variant of my name -- but she's extremely minor (not even in the book for more than a cameo), and she's actually called that because when I think of her, I am envisioning somebody else I knew with the same name. Even that I might change in the end.

(When I was choosing my pseud, I was originally going for "Claudia Lake," but that wouldn't work. I had a character with the last name Gray, which had the same sort of sound/feel as Lake. So I stole the name from him and rechristened him with the surname More. I hope he'll forgive me.)

[preyer]

my evil queen's name is 'Tersa' because that's what happened to pop into my head today as i jotted down notes. so far, with this idea she's the only one i've named. i put down 'MC' or 'MC's fiance' until i get tired of seeing it, and i rather abruptly come up with a name. i usually wind up sticking with it. i recycle a lot of names, too. unfortunately, two of my favourite names i feel somewhat unable to use. lynn, my wife, is an awesome name, but i don't want her to get the wrong impression if she ever read something i wrote without asking. rachel is my bro in law's ex-wife, and, again, i don't want to give out the wrong impression. just an unlucky coincidence and i try to keep the peace as best as i can. :)

[DancingMaenid]

Unless I can think of a name that sounds good to me, I'll go on different baby-naming sites to look for one. I'm not overly picky about meaning. I'm more interested in the name being good and good for the character. But when I have a foreign character, I'll just about go to the ends of the earth to find a good name for them.

[Zoombie]

1) Some times, the name is a joke.

Example: Pix in E.L.F is a cyborg. At first, it was just Pix. Then I realized Pix was short for Pixie, which reflected her character. But THEN I realized it was actually Pixel, which made her full name Pixel A-3. This was funnier and opened up the possibility of having her kids be Vacuum, Quantum and Circuit (Or Vac, Quant and Cir for short). Which is an EVEN MORE obscure computer joke, with Vacuum being short for Vacuum tubes, Circuit being short for Solid State Circuitry and Quantum being short for Quantum Computers.

See, Vac is the oldest (because Vacuum tubes are the oldest kind of computer), while Cir is the middle child and Quant is the youngest. Oh the wit.


2) They sound cool.

Example: I just like the name Alex. So, Alex of Tervarthen (Tervarthen being my physic's teacher's last name. I liked it so much, I stole it), gets his name. Pretty simple.

And lastly,

3) World building.

Names can tell you a lot about worlds. Or is it the other way around? Well, the main character of "Invaders" is called Voy. Which is short for Voyager. Which was the space probe that arrived at their planet a 100 years ago, which galvanized their space program and lead them to send a message back to Voyager's homeworld. Voyager and other human names (like Mark, Jon, Sarah and Vlodisevski Molotov) became really popular.

And then the humans showed up. With guns. And invaded the planet and then started occupying continents.

And suddenly, Voy's name is a lot less popular...


So that's how I choose my names.

[bluntforcetrauma]

Since I renamed the town in my novel, it just doesn't sit right. I may yet end up reverting back to the original name (which is a real place). Let 'em sue me. They'll hafta catch me first!

[Sonneillon]

I'm constantly at babynames.com. There are some characters who just seem to generate their own names, but if I need a specific meaning ('Blaine', meaning 'yellow', for the son of the golden-haired Norse god Baldur) or nationality (naming pretty much all of Vaeyinn's siblings because I wanted them to sound Arabic) it's a big help. Thankfully, since I write fantasy, I don't usually have to worry about the perfect meaning - the perfect sound is good enough. Often, puns on root words in other languages serve in this capacity - Charn, Vaeyinn's oldest brother, who murdered his sister so he could take the throne. Charn is obviously based on 'Char' which is the root of many words (carnage, charnal) having to do with slaughter. It's also a small nod to the Dark Tower Series. Lirin, an MC in another story I've been thinking of writing, is a play on 'lyric'. He's a 'Dirge', a keeper of history, tradition, and magical intonation for the necromantic society he lives in, basically a bard.

/ramble

[chevbrock]

For my current WIP, I developed a bit of a system. They are all named after cars.

For the female characters, I added a letter or two either side of the name of the car.

For the male characters, I took away a letter or two from either side of the name of the car.

It seems to be working pretty well!

The exception is the protag, Isabel Le Curieux. She always was Isabel. Her surname means "curious" in French, and I threw a "Le" in for fun.

Babel Fish may be useful in finding a name. Pick a word and translate it.

[Devil Ledbetter]

I always think about the character's parents and the name they'd have chosen. That's pretty much how we get our names, isn't it? Then I adjust for alterations or nicknames that come up as a result of the character's personality or upbringing.

[donroc]

In my horror novel, A GATHERING OF VULTURES, I gave one of the important characters the surname of Kraai, which had been that of one of my students years ago. Only after it was published did I learn kraai is the Dutch word for crow.

For my historical novel, I had to research names common to the geography for my fictional characters.

[hammerklavier]

I did something funny in my first work. I knew the MC's names, but whenever I needed a minor character's name or place name, I wasted a lot of time trying to find the perfect one. I wasn't getting much writing done. So I started just putting in XYZ every time. This caused a lot of confusion because I had to sort out which XYZ was which.

In the novel I'm working on now, I'm trying to do A1, B1, C1, etc and entering them into a note file with descriptions so I can name them later. I'll see how that works.

[AZ_Dawn]

I don't any one system for names. However, most of my pirates got their nicknames first, then their real names. I've used random generators to create family members for some of them. Nicknames are never randomly generated because nicknames absolutely have to fit the character. As for the type of names I like to use, I prefer normal names, or at least normal for the time and place.

[hammerklavier]

This is great. I tried a random rapper name and got:

Dr Doggy Dog Fresh-P


I don't know if anyone has used this site http://www.behindthename.com/random/
but it not only will generate lots of random names, based on nationalities, but if you click on the suggested name, it will provide a brief history of the source of the name.

[dirtsider]

I have to find where I put it in my mess of books but I have a book called the "Character Naming Guide". Sometimes I skim through it. Sometimes I have a nationality in mind and use it that way.

Also, if I find a cool name that I like, I write it down in one of my notebooks for later use.

[Stew21]

Some of my character names just happen. I just write and there's a name. This happened with my last book. Turns out - much later - I recognized that two of the characters have names of two people I used to know a long time ago. It wasn't consciously done. It just happened.
Other minor characters for that same book were found. I was writing one day during lunch at a sports bar/restaurant. the table had basball cards all over it and were lamentated over - so they were just part of the table. I pulled names from the baseball cards (first name from one card, last name from another) until each of the characters in the new scene were named.

[Smiling Ted]

I have two questions.

1) Is it wrong to name a character after yourself?
2) How do you name your characters? Do you do deep searches to find the perfect name with the perfect meaning? Or do you just pick a name that sounds right? What about last names (the hardest things for me to come up with)?

Any name that might jolt the reader out of the story is wrong - like a name that is recognizably that of the author, the president, the king of Sweden, etc. etc.
Any name that might confuse the reader is wrong (for instance, names that sound alike for two separate characters).

For names that are characteristic of particular nationalities - e.g. Russian, French, etc. - Wikipedia is actually a terrific resource. (Check out "Russian Names" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_names) or "French Names" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_names) to see what I mean.)

[M.P. Furo]

I personally don't name characters after myself- everyone'll think it's self-insertion and I hate it when people think my characters are self-insertions. (yes, my username here is Furo, the name of one of my MC's and it looks like a pen name and I was considering it for a while but- no)

When I name characters- well, it depends.

One of my WIPs uses entirely the scientific names of animals- Furo for ferret, Kotiya is a species of leopard- you get the idea.

I have a whole dimension full of ferrets, and when I name them, I grab two names with specific meanings and smash 'em together, making them sound more exotic. =P

And if I'm trying to make a character with a more normal-sounding name, I grab my sister Camille, bring up the top 101-200 baby names for a certain year, and have her pick one.

[Jenan Mac]

I have a Hindu character who was named Kevin Down before I knew where he'd be from. (It's become his online name, but I still don't know his real name.)


He works for tech support at AOL, right?

[Jenan Mac]

My names just sort of show up, mostly. The characters just sort of look like a Gordon, or Bill. OTOH, one of my supporting characters is a very strong, competent feminist attorney, and she needed to be more faceted. I decided to give her a first name she hates-- so, being a child of the early sixties, she got christened Kellisue. She promptly decided to rename herself Kell; only one sister still calls her Kellisue, and they can't stand each other.
None of that's actually in the story, but it explains a lot about her.