The meaning behind character names

Parents name their kids with no knowledge of how they will turn out. Sometimes it is wishful thinking, which is why having a killer named Buffy, or Angle is kind of Ironic.

The Billy Bob situation comes about with regionalisms, in some regions, people have certain names. If Billy Bob is a nick name for William Robert Crenshaw Jr. Suddenly it's a different situation.

I wouldn't go all out to find a name that "fits" a character because that smacks of authorial intrusion, and yet, I do look for a name that seems "right" for the person and the field, but to me, names are kind of random.

Now, you could work from the extrapolation that the name of a child says more about the parents of the kid than the child him or herself. You can really use this to its hilt in many cases as well.

Don't overthink it. You could spend a lot of time shifting through books, looking up the meaning, trying to match everything up--and it's going to be lost on the reader. Most aren't going to know what the name means and may not even care.

Just make sure you like the name and that, if the story is something like historical, that the name is appropriate for the time.

I tend to pick names because they sound nice. I do have a character named Redemption in my latest novel, and another named Patience, and both names end up being ironic.*


*Hey, they're Puritans -- they're allowed to be named after spiritual concepts.

Zodiea said:

Is it worth it to change the names, or would the extra element make the book have more depth to you? At what point would you draw the line and call it corny?

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No. I don't think most people will know the meaning of a character's name off the top of their head. If you didn't do it on purpose, then don't worry about it. If you know it bothers you, I suggest not looking up the meaning of the character's name after deciding on it.

Personally, I never look up meanings of names or try to match them up to a character. I think it's a fairly shallow way of attempting to add depth to a novel or character. Once in a while, giving meaning to a character's name works, but usually it doesn't really add anything.

Zodiea said:

I find names I like that suit the character and aren’t too out there… Only to find that the definition of the name is a match, or the history of it a nearly perfect match. At that point, I begin going out of my way to find them another name because, as a reader, it would annoy me if I knew.

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Maybe this is a sign from your unconscious to go ahead and give them such names though?

As a reader, I find that "fitting" names don't really bother me that much unless they are WAY obvious. None of the examples you gave, except for perhaps Anastasia (and that only because I thought of the...czarina or whatever she was, I didn't know what the name actually meant), struck me as too obvious. After all, how many people know that "Cecilia" means "blind"? I honestly didn't until now!

My name means "ewe" or "lamb" and I'm painfully shy and quiet--though I'm fairly certain my parents couldn't have had a clue as to that.

That being said, I usually don't choose character names based on meaning, but rather on whether the sound of the name fits the character. Sometimes it's even in contradiction to how the character really is (e. g., my character named Damien is in fact a good guy who hates evil cults, ha ha).

And then there are cultures where a person's name actually changes to fit their personality, for example, some American Indian cultures.

On a semi-related note, I picked the name of my favorite protagonist, Charmian, at random from a baby names book. No intentions in mind, and I didn't think I'd even grow to like her much as a character. Now I find that her name has taken on a kind of life of its own.

If you are writing extremely literary fiction where every word, every nuance has a deep meaning that alludes to all sorts of other things and everything is a symbol for something else, symbols that add layers upon layers to the meaning, then yes, names are important.

Otherwise, just pick a name that sounds good and is appropriate for the period that person was born in.

nevada said:

If you are writing extremely literary fiction where every word, every nuance has a deep meaning that alludes to all sorts of other things and everything is a symbol for something else, symbols that add layers upon layers to the meaning, then yes, names are important.

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Like I said before, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. As a reader of literary fiction, I must say most cases don't call for names to actually have much importance as far as symbolism goes. In fact, usually I see it as a fairly shallow, amateurish attempt at adding meaning where none is needed.

But of course, there are many exceptions. But none of the ones I can think of--books where names became important/symbolic and it worked--actually had anything to do with the name's historic name, but rather other things associated with the name.

Bond... James Bond.

... was taken from a guide to West Indies birds. You go with what works.

Zodiea said:

I think I may have some trauma left over from my early days of writing on roleplaying forums. Every other girl was named Raven, and those who weren't bragged using the ‘name based on personality’ formula. That’s most likely where I got my sensitivity to it.

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Ahh! That would scar anyone.

Sometimes it's a nice bonus when a name has an interesting (or suitable) meaning, but I tend to pick them based both on how they sound and what the person who named the character would like.

There’s a meaning behind every name.

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Nope. You lost me at the first sentence.

I choose all my names arbitrarily, especially when I'm writing fantasy.

I do my best to consider the mix of names - help the readers keep them all straight.

Funny story about this -

I heard of the name Briony for the first time the other day, immediately fell in love with it, and attached it to the villain of my new and evolving WIP. It just fit.

Then I ran into this thread tonight and thought I'd look into the meaning of some of my character's names. Briony? It means poisonous climbing vine.

If you want to name a character for a trait he/she has go Here

The MC in my novel is based on someone in real life. I wanted to name my character a name that meant the same thing his name meant.. Rival... but there was none..

I thought that was funny.

I'm going through this myself. I need a good mix of cultures but the names themselves are arbitrary they don't need a special meaning. I'm using babynames.com. I look up the names to make sure I'm not naming one of my characters say a Spanish name: Ventana, which means window. As in a window in your house. Otherwise, I don't care about the meaning.

The background of my WIP covers 4,000 years so that's a lot of names. So my first colonists are going to be missing Earth and naming their kids after favorite places or cities or states or family members still living on Earth. The next few generations are probably going to be looking more ahead so I'll be having a lot of celestial/outer space names. I'm going to be having some major events and they will be meeting an alien culture on their way to the new planet. So I'm going to have the names reflect this as well. So I guess the names show more about the people doing the naming rather than the people with the names.

Joycecwilliams said:

The MC in my novel is based on someone in real life. I wanted to name my character a name that meant the same thing his name meant.. Rival... but there was none..

I thought that was funny.

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I searched rival on Babynames.com and it came up with this list:

• AMELIA
• EMIL
• EMILE
• EMILIA
• EMILIANA
• EMILIANO
• EMILIE
• EMILIO
• EMILY
• EMLYN
• EMMLY

I don't know if you picked a name out yet or not but I hope this helps.
Pink = girls, Blue = boys, Green = both

Every name might have a meaning, but to be honest, I hate any writer who chooses character names based on the meaning. It just seems so trite when a happy character is named Joy or like in the Matrix where they kept calling Neo, "The One." Gee, they share the same letters! Should that be a clue?

This is why I love writing historicals about famous people from the past. All my characters come pre-named, and the ones who don't can easily be named with a little quick and easy research into what kinds of names were commonly used during their time period.

Bwa ha ha ha!

I doubt your readers would be thinking on what your characters' names mean.

It's more like a writer's trick: to help them characterize. The character's name probably means more to them and their parents than to the readers.

Some names are archetypical and they help draw immediate associations. To me, it works in certain genres. Sure, all the heros have heroic names, as if they were destined from the day they were born to be heros, and all the bad guys have creepy names. That's fine for fantasy, but rather silly for contemporary, for example.

Now nicknames are different. Those reveal characteristics and history -- whether the name was given by peers or themselves. These nicknames are usually based on character trails, events, or as terms of endearment from their friends and family. So nicknames are more relevant.

I seriously think you shouldn't sweat too much about it. 99.99% of the readers will not notice your name has a hidden meaning unless it is very obvious (example: naming the sulky character Gloom). The 0.01% of the readers is not worth your hour wasted on finding whether your name has any significance or not.

I view name choices as just part of character development, because the same people who picked the character's name raised him/her. Parental perceptions and expectations for their children affect name choices and the way children perceive themselves. So take a character with an old-fashioned name, who is trapped in her parents' expectations that she'll suit that name. Will she rebel or meet their expectations? Or take a character with an unusual name--I have a biker in one story whose given name is Joy--he's saddled with that expectation from his parents.

I've only done it once. In my current book, the three main characters' names relate to the plot in a big way. Hopefully it works as well I think it does. Every other book, though, I've just gone for what feels like a good name.