Naming Characters

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tileus said:

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.

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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.

maestrowork said:

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.

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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.

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

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 . . .)

Do you remember the Laurel & Hardy movies of old?

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.

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.

Roger J Carlson said:

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.

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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.

E.G. Gammon said:

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

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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.

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.

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.)

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.

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

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.

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?

Naming

E.G. Gammon said:

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?

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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.

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.

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.

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.