Naming characters

RNGs, sometimes. If I need minor supporting/background characters and it's a fairly contemporary or "current Earth" setting (I write a lot of SFF) I'll mash together a couple of names from people I know IRL.

I do like "symbolic" names (not necessary a hero being called Angel, but something that speaks about some major character trait) but usually I just picture the character, then throw names at them until one of them sticks.

I usually go to the Social Security Baby Name website, look up the year the character was born, and scroll through the list of the top 1000 names. (Everything I write is contemporary.)

Generally I go with a generic name that I think suits the character or names I personally like. One story I'm working on I've used symbolic naming for the characters last names. I thought it would be more subtle that way.

I don’t write historical stories, so I can’t help with that, but I have a trick I use for contemporary or near-future characters.

I think about that character’s parents and where they’re from then Google the top names from that area for the correct birth year. If your character has a mother and father, think about where the father was from for surname. Also think about if the parents are religious; this could affect their naming choices.

Once you have a list of names, go down and look for something unique that fits the character. Try to mix up the number of syllables between characters and between first names and last names. Also make sure all of your names start with different letters.

Am I the only one who plucks the names from thin air? Maybe I'm not being scientific enough about it...

RNG for generic/background characters (like, say, Jack or Bob for a bartender), and for more important ones I usually come up with something unique on the spot or use either the first name or the last name of people I know IRL.

I know some people really like coming up with all kinds of crazy names for their characters sometimes, but I'm far more practical in my approach. In urban fantasy you must be careful that your characters' names don't sound too out of place, but in more standard fare I guess everything goes.

I've never had to think about it except for my recent historical nov when I did some research on Saxon, Norman and Viking names. Even then there some I just made up.

In my usual crime fiction characters just seem to already have a name in the moment of invention.

An amusing aside - my first published crime novel had an English football backdrop so all the named background characters were named after my friends, usually playing in the teams they most hate. My oldest friend is a Spurs fan so naturally I made him captain of Arsenal. At one point he scores a goal, kisses the badge and leaps into the adoring Gooner crowd. I was literally howling with laughter when he read that aloud with a blend of delight and indignation. Another mate still refers to himself as the hero of p 336.

I loved naming my characters too. I found it to be so much fun. Because my novel is based on a true story some characters names I changed more than made up. For some I used what their real name meant. For example, Lloyd means "grey". So Lloyd became Grey. Norah means "honor" so, Norah became Honor. Others I wanted to have the same ring to, for example, John and Sean a pair, always and only in scenes together became Derek and Eric. Angela became Jessica, same ring. One of the characters I made up entirely I used to pay homage to my dad, whose nickname is and has always been "Squeak", although the character'ss reason for the nickname is completely different.

I avoid any name which would jar the reader because it's meaningful. That's too author intrusive. I want a fairly simple name, not one hard to pronounce, but not bland. And suited to the character's background, so that a Chinese might be named Wang Mei-lin. ("Call me May. Everyone does.")

I do a Google search to help me out, as in Chinese surnames or Chinese given names. Then I go through the list till one stands out for some intuitive reason.

When this topic comes up, I can't help but think of "the artist formerly known as Prince" - and the symbol he wanted to be ... called? known by?

I avoid any name which would jar the reader because it's meaningful. That's too author intrusive.

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Aww, I love names with meanings! But I prefer they don't stick out like sore thumbs and still gel with the setting. For example, if I'm choosing French names for a piece, I won't give one character an ancient Sumerian name with twenty syllables because I like what it means. The esthetics have to match.

Behind The Name is my go-to source for names, for both things set in modern times and pseudomedieval fantasy. Like some others in this thread I go by birth year and the most popular 100 or 1000 names for my contemporary stuff. For the fantasy I poke around until I find something that claims to be old enough to fit in with the preindustrial aesthetic. Since it's only pseudomedieval and not historical fiction I sometimes play with the names a little; Gavrielle instead of Gabrielle, Katrin instead of Catherine, that sort of thing. And very occasionally I just make something up.

I just use regular names like Alicia or Kathy.

Like others, I use Behind the Name and social security lists (geographical ones) for name ideas. Because different generations matter in my contemporary work - and I need readers to feel that age difference - I tend to go for names a generation older or younger than would be popular in their birth year. For example, Elaines and Dianes may be grandparents now, but the readers I'm aiming at won't think of those as "grandma" names. So I go a generation older, to the Bettys and Paulas, etc. And the same when someone needs to seem really young.

For very minor characters, I indulge myself by naming them after people I know. I try to stick some version of my kids' names in everything I write, always as the literary equivalent of "extras."

The thing that trips me up (and I'm wondering if anyone else has this experience) is that I literally cannot write a scene with a new character until he/she is named. When I plan, I try to name all the major and secondary characters, but I inevitably forget someone or add someone new. And when that character walks on to the stage, until he or she has a name, I can't do a thing with him/her. It's as though they're not "real" in my head until they're named. I don't understand who they are and therefore, can't write about them.

Everyone I mention this to thinks I'm being weird and melodramatic. And then gets annoyed when I reject their suggestions. ("No. 'Tyler' is not the name of a slightly competent local policeman.") My sister even writes with placeholder names and then goes back and fixes it when she's done. But for me, everything comes to a grinding halt until the character has the right name.

prue74 said:

The thing that trips me up (and I'm wondering if anyone else has this experience) is that I literally cannot write a scene with a new character until he/she is named. When I plan, I try to name all the major and secondary characters, but I inevitably forget someone or add someone new. And when that character walks on to the stage, until he or she has a name, I can't do a thing with him/her. It's as though they're not "real" in my head until they're named. I don't understand who they are and therefore, can't write about them.

Everyone I mention this to thinks I'm being weird and melodramatic. And then gets annoyed when I reject their suggestions. ("No. 'Tyler' is not the name of a slightly competent local policeman.") My sister even writes with placeholder names and then goes back and fixes it when she's done. But for me, everything comes to a grinding halt until the character has the right name.

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Same. And Tyler is clearly the name of a completely incompetent police officer.

I typically choose my character's names by using something that looks/sounds like the mythological character they represent, but for other characters I tend to populate the alphabet. In other words, I might have a few characters that start with the name "A" but nothing for "B." I'll google "boys names that start with B" and start browsing pages until I see something I like. If nothing pops out at me, I'll try another letter.

I literally ask the character. When I'm writing a new story, I always use a placeholder name, and then as the story progresses, the character will reveal his/her name to me.

My most recently one was Kayden (placeholder). By chapter four, he was like, "Dude, that name is so hippy and artistic totally not my personality at all. I gatta commit treason later in the book, so give me something more down to earth." So my man became Nathan. He's happy with that.

prue74 said:

The thing that trips me up (and I'm wondering if anyone else has this experience) is that I literally cannot write a scene with a new character until he/she is named. When I plan, I try to name all the major and secondary characters, but I inevitably forget someone or add someone new. And when that character walks on to the stage, until he or she has a name, I can't do a thing with him/her. It's as though they're not "real" in my head until they're named. I don't understand who they are and therefore, can't write about them.

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I use placeholders for walk-on characters who maybe have a functional role in a scene but won't be needed for anything else in the story. As soon as I give them a real name they start insisting they're people and demanding story space, and it's hard to look into their little 12-point faces and tell them they're never going to be promoted to real developed characters and if they put up a fuss I'll just give their lines to XXX or NNN and they can go whistle. They tend to resist that dictum. Darn characters, think they can push me, The Author, around! Just because they have names and such.

I've only written two MS, and the second one isn't quite complete.

The first is secondary world, so the names were chosen based on the conlang. The MC in particular, I wanted to give an ugly name because a lot of fantasy names (I feel) often suffer from unintentional gender stereotypes.

the second one is contemporary-ish setting and I guess I tried to pick a more diverse cast. Names from all over. Americans have lots of heritages and crazy names so it doesn't feel out of place. Or if it does, I don't really care.

a lot of fantasy names (I feel) often suffer from unintentional gender stereotypes.

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Would you care to elaborate on this? I am intrigued.

lol, that's a long dark rabbithole! we associate certain sounds with certain genders, and also with certain characteristics (consider how Tolkien devised Elvish to sound, as opposed to the language of mordor). if you end up doing your own conlang at some point, there's reams of stuff about our associations and biases towards certain sounds.

the same for names, I guess. We tend to think of some sounds as more masculine or feminine; you're unlikely to see a male knight called Alayanna (invented on the spot here) in a fantasy novel, but the female characters always seem to have an abundance of As in their names, and it wouldn't be out of place >.>


smarter people than me can explain it better;

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4446333/ a somewhat limited paper in relation to real names but has links to others in it (including I think studies on made up names, though they mean stuff like online avatars).

from part of the discussion section;


[FONT=&quot]The results of this analysis of category norms showed that the greater the proportion of round-sounding consonants in a name, the more likely that name was to be female. In contrast, the proportion of sharp-sounding consonants was not predictive of name gender. This is consistent with previous findings that female names are more likely than male names to end in a sonorant consonant [24]. Additionally, although sharp-sounding consonants were not predictive of name gender here, previous findings have demonstrated that male names are more likely than female names to end in a stop consonant [34].[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Thus, there is some evidence that phonemes are not only associated with shape, but also with the more abstract concept of gender, at least in the case of phonemic roundness and femaleness. [/FONT]