Interesting names you've given characters

The Second Moon · Jul 14, 2019

I've always found naming characters to be a super fun part of the planning process, but I haven't needed to name any major characters lately so I've been missing the thrill of finding the perfect name. While thinking of this I've remembered some cool names I've given characters.

For example:

Friday the XIII (13th) - He was a super unlucky prince, but the story he was in didn't get anywhere, so bye-bye Friday.

Bob Smith - Okay, so this name is so boring it made its way onto my interesting radar. I'm currently writing the story he's a side character in, but I've changed his name to Bob Anderson.

Hazel and Lezah - They were twins in a SF in a story that never got past the couple year long planning phase. If you read Lezah's name backwards it is "Hazel".

Those are some of mine. What are some of your interesting names?

Kathella · Jul 14, 2019

Alecus, a derivative of Regalecus glesne, the scientific name for oarfish. He's a fish-boy.

Estoria: used to work at a local Walgreens, and a regular customer's name was Historia. Fell in love with the sound of the name, and tweaked it. She played a minor role in a long abandoned fantasy story.

Kathella: Also my username here! A derivative of Cathal, meaning great warrior in Gaelic, if I remember correctly. Kathal was the original name, but when I used it for a female character, I switched it to Kathella.

nickj47 · Jul 14, 2019

Not a big fans of names you can't pronounce as soon as you see them. I like Bob Smith. Or Bob Anderson. Over the years (in the IT industry) I've worked with enough people to recognize and pronounce Spanish, Indian, and Chinese names on sight. Greek, ancient Roman, and made up names can be a problem, unless it's something simple like Kal-El.

Chris P · Jul 14, 2019

There used to be a coffee shop in New Orleans on the corner of Julia and Fulton down by the convention center. Therefore, Julia Fulton was one of my first main characters. There also was a sign on the highway in Mississippi indicating the exit to get to Lena or to Morton. Lena Morton was another chatacter in the same story. Headed towards Brimingham from Tuscaloosa, a sign indicates the exit for Vance and Brookwood. Vance Brookwood is one of the MCs of a current WIP.

Back when they were still a thing, I used to keep every phone book I could get my hands on from around the county. My system was to open to a random page and pick a first name. Then open another random page and pick a last name. I'd mix and match until I found names I liked. Today, I use FindAGrave.com for the same purpose.

Kat M · Jul 14, 2019

My latest MC (if I can get this new WIP off the ground) is named Neva. I adore that name, but when I looked at naming trends I found it would be an odd, old-fashioned name for a woman in her early 30s. It's most commonly a diminutive of Geneva, which right away sounds like someone whose realm is composed of quilts, jello with fruit in it, and greenbean casserole. Not the character I intended to write!

So I invented an overbearing grandma who pretty much demanded any female fresh meat be named after her. Hence, a young Geneva who can't bear her name and always shortens it to Neva or Neve.

Norman Mjadwesch · Jul 14, 2019

Chris P said:
Back when they were still a thing, I used to keep every phone book I could get my hands on from around the county. My system was to open to a random page and pick a first name. Then open another random page and pick a last name. I'd mix and match until I found names I liked. Today, I use FindAGrave.com for the same purpose.

I’ve used the phone book and findagrave.com too.

Sometimes I use first and last names of people I know in different combinations, though rarely people I know well (especially last names). An exception I made was when one of my friends had his name misspelled in some advertising and I started calling him that as a joke (still do, years later); and from that I decided to use the name for the MC in one of my stories, and so Scomme was born.

My favourite trick is to use the names of internet scammers*. If someone tries to extort money from me then they get a minor character named for their troubles. And the character dies. Painfully. As they should. Paul Collins, Linda Horan, Tracy Morris and Douglas Fulton have all had grisly ends. It gives me a little glow to have rid the world of them.

*There is also a particularly pesky fellow at the moment who is trying to have me pay a ransom with some silly bitcoin demands, due to some "online recording" he did of me in a compromising state of attire, but unfortunately I do not consider the name of Anonymous H?acker to be a name of any credibility. Weirdly, I keep failing to meet his deadline but he keeps extending it for unknown reasons even though he was adamant that his demands were not a bluff. :e2moon:

RookieWriter · Jul 14, 2019

Most of my names are basic and easy but I do sometimes throw in names based on certain situations. In a story a wrote the main character has a one night stand with a woman named Cleo, named after a porn actress. I've also combined names of characters from some of my favorite stories, for example I might take the first name of a villain in one story and cross it with the last name of a villain from another story to have it be a villain in my story. Stuff like that. I also use numbers that have specific meaning to me such as my birthday, or other dates that I have in my head as memorable. Such as my first address, 3339, a phone number in the story might be 212-555-3339.

RookieWriter · Jul 14, 2019

Norman Mjadwesch said:
I’ve used the phone book and findagrave.com too.

Sometimes I use first and last names of people I know in different combinations, though rarely people I know well (especially last names). An exception I made was when one of my friends had his name misspelled in some advertising and I started calling him that as a joke (still do, years later); and from that I decided to use the name for the MC in one of my stories, and so Scomme was born.

My favourite trick is to use the names of internet scammers*. If someone tries to extort money from me then they get a minor character named for their troubles. And the character dies. Painfully. As they should. Paul Collins, Linda Horan, Tracy Morris and Douglas Fulton have all had grisly ends. It gives me a little glow to have rid the world of them.

*There is also a particularly pesky fellow at the moment who is trying to have me pay a ransom with some silly bitcoin demands, due to some "online recording" he did of me in a compromising state of attire, but unfortunately I do not consider the name of Anonymous H?acker to be a name of any credibility. Weirdly, I keep failing to meet his deadline but he keeps extending it for unknown reasons even though he was adamant that his demands were not a bluff.

Nice.

The Second Moon · Jul 15, 2019

Not a big fans of names you can't pronounce as soon as you see them. I like Bob Smith. Or Bob Anderson.

I'n not a big fan of hard to pronounce names either.

As for Bob's name, I only called him Bob Smith because I needed a name quick. But Bob Smith loathed his name to the point where it was annoying, so I changed it to Bob Anderson. I've tried to change his first name, too, but he looks too much like a Bob.

MadAlice · Jul 15, 2019

The first "novel" (only ended up being novella length, I should pull it out of the trunk and rework it) that I finished--my main character was named Patience, and her (assigned) husband was named Wisdom, Dom for short. Her love interest is Charlotte. It's a dystopian thing.

starrystorm · Jul 15, 2019

I once imagined a story where the MC was named B.R End (Be Our End) or Brenda for short. She was supposed to bring on the end of the world.

The Second Moon · Jul 15, 2019

starrystorm said:
I once imagined a story where the MC was named B.R End (Be Our End) or Brenda for short. She was supposed to bring on the end of the world.

Heh. That's clever. I'll never look at the name Brenda the same way again.

K Robert Donovan · Jul 17, 2019

Below are some samples of different names used in my book.

Fridridsson
Hadassah
Al-Faraj
Dahdi
Vertonghen

I tried to pick names that at least could be phonetically sounded out. We've all seen those names where it looked like someone dragged their knuckles across the keyboard to randomly generate a name.

I did a count of names listed in my Glossary of Names and Places - I have 59 named characters listed, of which maybe a dozen are used consistently throughout the book. I will probably cut a handful during the revision process.

abdall · Jul 19, 2019

There Falitarey, which is just shortened to Lita.
Jenneva, which is shortened to Jennie.
Koen, which is pronounced Co-En
Lysander, whose name I chose based off of my favorite Shakespeare play
Morsdeus, which is just latin for death god

those are my weirdest one

Alden · Jul 19, 2019

A few names I've come up with in my fantasy novel that I really like are:
Clyde Mavericks
Azharan Ainzhart
Sabrina Reynsworth
Kaironus Cequal

I also have a couple friends named Benny and Kenneth. One of my friends thought it was funny to combine both their names and ended up with the name Benneth. I liked the ring of that so I used it for the name of a village in my story.

AspienBlue · Jul 20, 2019

I really enjoyed coming up with character names for my WIP. My MC's parents are atheist chemists, so they named their daughter Ester. They're Richard & Jane Stone, so there are lots of Dick & Jane jokes. Many of the teachers in Ester's school got their names as plays on my own HS teachers. The English teacher is named Ron Easting after Ray Westberg, the chemistry teacher Mr. Lodge after Mr. Hodges. Her cat's name is Ion, because the entire book is riddled with chemistry puns & references. My method for naming characters, if I can call it that, is to softly close my eyes and just sort of "feel" the character. A name generally comes very quickly and just feels right.

frimble3 · Jul 20, 2019

starrystorm said:
I once imagined a story where the MC was named B.R End (Be Our End) or Brenda for short. She was supposed to bring on the end of the world.

Be a great name for the first really 'human' AI - on the theory that she could do anything we could do and be the end of us.

Elenitsa · Jul 20, 2019

Kat M said:
My latest MC (if I can get this new WIP off the ground) is named Neva.

It's also the river passing through St. Petersburg, and running into the Baltic Sea.

To YOUR standard, the names I use a lot are very unusual, because they are Greek, Aromanian, Albanian, Turkish, Italian or from other ethnicities. I know Americans who can't believe that Andrea is a boy's name (but they don't think about Andrea Bocelli, the singer - because yes, in Italian Andrea is the boy and the very rare Andreina is the girl). Names I use often because I like them (and the characters are from the right ethnicities): Haiditsa, Leftheris, Vangelis, Dionisos, Asteritsa, Hrisanthi, Sirma, Amira, Nesti, Sterio, Nikita...

The Second Moon · Jul 20, 2019

abdall said:
There Falitarey, which is just shortened to Lita.
Jenneva, which is shortened to Jennie.
Koen, which is pronounced Co-En
Lysander, whose name I chose based off of my favorite Shakespeare play
Morsdeus, which is just latin for death god

those are my weirdest one

OMG! I love the name Lysander. I really want to use it on a character, but I haven't found the perfect character yet.

starrystorm · Jul 20, 2019

Mickey Mickey McE.

I made him up in middle school for a now trunked fantasy, he also had a daughter named Echolocation with the middle named spelled differently. Yes, it was a mouthful when she got in trouble.

Kjbartolotta · Jul 20, 2019

Merlyn Hossenkoff

Kat M · Jul 20, 2019

Elenitsa said:
[The Neva is] also the river passing through St. Petersburg, and running into the Baltic Sea.

Ooh, I knew that, but then I forgot!

Elenitsa said:
To YOUR standard, the names I use a lot are very unusual, because they are Greek, Aromanian, Albanian, Turkish, Italian or from other ethnicities. I know Americans who can't believe that Andrea is a boy's name (but they don't think about Andrea Bocelli, the singer - because yes, in Italian Andrea is the boy and the very rare Andreina is the girl). Names I use often because I like them (and the characters are from the right ethnicities): Haiditsa, Leftheris, Vangelis, Dionisos, Asteritsa, Hrisanthi, Sirma, Amira, Nesti, Sterio, Nikita...

Andreina sounds like a lovely name . . . not one I could finagle into my stories about Americans, alas. You've got a lovely assortment of favorite names, btw.

RookieWriter · Jul 21, 2019

I once wrote a short story with no names. It only had two characters who were called "he" and "she."

Thorberta · Jul 23, 2019

The male MC for one of my WIPs is named Bliss, which came from a book I was reading about gold mining, it was the name of one of a set of brothers who owned a mine.

One of my female MCs for an upcoming project set in the early 19th century is going to be named Experience after a tombstone from 1809 I came across.

The Second Moon · Jul 28, 2019

My MC is named Joshua-Gabe. At first his name was going to be Augustus-Fred. I changed it when the character hated it so much he begged his friends to find a way to get his named changed.

Interesting names you've given characters

The Second Moon

Kathella

A Petty Dabbler

nickj47

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

Kat M

Ooh, look! String!

Norman Mjadwesch

vacuous eyes, will bark at shadows

RookieWriter

RookieWriter

The Second Moon

MadAlice

We're all mad down here

starrystorm

The Second Moon

K Robert Donovan

Wishing Upon a Star...

abdall

trash mammal

Alden

AspienBlue

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

Elenitsa

writing as Marina Costa

The Second Moon

starrystorm

Kjbartolotta

Potentially has/is dog

Kat M

Ooh, look! String!

RookieWriter

Thorberta

Not a squirrel, but close.

The Second Moon