How do you name your characters?

I'm not very creative in this respect. If we're being honest I stare at a blank wall until something pops into my head that sounds good.

I have many different ways to name my characters some of them I get from Nameberry, while others I make up. Sometimes characters just tell me their names.

I am pretty arbitrary about naming characters as I work, and often change the names later if I think of better ones. I don't need a "perfect" name for a character in order to proceed on a story, and don't get hung up connecting a name with the nature of the character. Other than that, no method at all.

caw

autumnleaf said:

I'm from Ireland and I had a look at the "Irish names" page on Nameberry. There are quite a few names that I've never seen before (Bedelia, Aralt), I've only seen as surnames (Callahan, Fitzgerald) or place names (Cavan, Dublin), or are existing names spelled weirdly (Aydan, P'Adraic). The "Native American names" seem to be mostly tribes rather than personal names, while the "African names" page shoves a lot of varied cultures and languages together with little effort to distinguish between them. So if you are trying to get accurate names that reflect a culture or place, use Nameberry with care. If you're writing Fantasy where you just want to get a particular "cultural feel", this may be less relevant.

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Yes. I used to write for this site, but it can be tough getting the names changed when they're inaccurate. It's a lot of this sort of thing, like autumnleaf said. When I name my characters, it depends on what kind of story I'm writing, but if I need a specific meaning or culture, I use BehindtheName and BehindtheSurname. Those two sites are pretty reliably accurate when it comes to the etymology and such and do a good job separating the names into their respective cultures.
If I need a word name or a nature name, I usually just Google around until I find one I like. For example, I've been Googling poisonous plants a lot recently because I'm using a lot of those sorts of names.

I'm writing science fiction that is set a couple thousand years in the future. While I could easily make up names I like how lived in real names feel. Since my background is in medieval stuff I like to use The Academy of Saint Gabriel site. It was set up to help medieval reenactors select authentic names. They use historical documents from a number of cultures to get a feel for name construction.

Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

For fiction, I prefer Old Hack's method of letting the characters tell me. Otherwise, I go by what their parents would likely have called them...or what their character really is. Sikh names have meanings and usually end up being the hardest virtue a person needs to develop, so when I'm writing a Sikh character, I go by the closest meaning that fits. If the person is a convert, I consider what the original was also. The only time I've gone onto the web to find a name was when I needed an Italian first name with a particular opening letter and was drawing a mental blank.

When I have had to change the name, due to too many people having the same first letter or whatever, two things can happen: I either realize that I had the "wrong" name all along OR I still want to call them what I was calling them, even though (in one case) I may have picked a name that suits them better. (If that made sense.)

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

I've relied on Behind The Name many times for both first and last names. It's especially useful for naming characters from different countries. The site isn't the end-all-be-all of names, but it's pretty solid overall. Plus if you're really lucky, you might stumble across both a pronounciation and meaning to the names. I'll usually make a list of the names that jump out at me most and then put them together. So if I settle on a couple favorite first names and favorite last names, I'll then come up with a list where all options are on the table and then whittle them down from there until I've got something that really appeals to me. Speaking different variations aloud also helps me to whittle them down further as well. Whether you go with a realistic name from a chosen culture or you come up with something of your own creation or that a name generator gave you, it's got to roll off the tongue so that the reader doesn't hit a snag every time that name comes up.

There are several cemeteries in my neighborhood and they are lovely places to take a stroll. The headstones often give me great name ideas.

There is a "name dice" app that you can shake and it will give you a first and last name. Not that I would ever use anything like that...

Liz_V said:

Can't believe no one has mentioned Behind The Name and Behind The Surname yet. Sometimes I'll have a nationality in mind, and start reading there; sometimes I have a first letter or a sound, and go at it that way. Either way, I can spend ages browsing name lists, and usually note a dozen for future use as well as whatever I went there for.

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I'm a big fan of Behindthename as well.

I search the internet for a list of names and I pick the most unique ones. But for my main characters in two unpublished stories, their names were based off of Youtubers that I watch.

I sometimes name my characters after friends or relatives. Keeps everyone on their toes. Home baked cookies and gift cards are always welcome.

I tend to write far-future SFF, so for human names I often extrapolate linguistic drift to get a possible name. Or I use modern-but-not-English names. I also created (rudimentary) constructed languages for my secondary-world fantasy stuff, so I have naming conventions in place.

Often the characters just tell me their names. Or they name each other. I have a bard who affectionately nicknamed the local Dark Lord 'Hayfern' for hilarious reasons...and it stuck.

I usually create names on my own, by experimenting around with different syllables in my head. Some of my names are also inspired my mythology. What they all have in common is that they must truly fit, i.e. I have to find a name for which I can say 'yes, this particular character couldn't be named otherwise'. Usually I kind of 'know' from gut feeling when a name clicks like that.

A little fun fact: My main character's name came about through a typo. But it stuck to the person, and suddenly I realized that this is her true name and any other name would be wrong.
Anyone else feel like that ?

My current project is a fantasy piece, so I get to make up names pretty willy-nilly. It's important to Google the names you make up, though. I had a couple of characters whose names I realized later on were exact or very similar matches to names from other works (none of which I'd read!). It was a little frustrating to change the names so late into the story.

Sometimes a name is just there. Sometimes there's a literary/historical connection.

If I'm stuck, I like browsing names until I find one that feels right.

The character usually tells me, but when I am struggling, I look around and steal bits and pieces of object in the room:

Lampshade + Stapler = Stepp Lampler
Label mker + Kleenex = Kexel Labenjer
Thermos + iPhone = Thor Phermios

It has to FEEL right to me. The right fit is sometimes hard to find and takes research, but you have to make it fit in your own head.

Just my amateur 0.02c!

I've rarely had to look for names, actually. The names have thus far pretty much come to me without effort. There are two exceptions I can think of off the bat: the last name in one WIP was the last name of someone who submitted to the journal I used to work for (it struck me as an interesting name), and for the name of another character I looked up names that mean "blue" or have associations with blue. (I had written a novella about a Confederate soldier named Gray and wanted to write a novella about a Union soldier with a name meaning "blue". Get it??) The name I came up with was Mazarine (the name of a French minister and also a shade of blue).

Robots - I rarely get a name that clicks that hard on first encounter -- though I love it when it does happen! But once I've had a name in place for a little while, it sets like concrete, and then there is no other name that will feel right for that character.

Jason - I love the object-mash names! Stepp Lampler sounds like a character in an international thriller.

angeliz2k - The "blue" name made me smile; I have a character named Cerise, which I thought was a shade of blue when I picked it. (Turns out it's pink. Luckily, the character's okay with that.)

I've been creating characters for a long time now... Long before I really knew what I was going to do with 'em. Sometimes they tell me who they are, and I'll then figure out their name. Other times, I'll come up with a name, and let it's "owner" tell me who they are.

If a person is from a particular place, or of a particular ancestry, I'll look up last names, then first/middle names, and put the results together for the character's name.

Another trick I use is to read movie credits. Those are a source of really good, often-unusual, real names, both first and last. A little mixing n' matching... and you've got yourself a whole new "person".

Oh, and if they are "normal" people, I give them a first, middle, and last name, at minimum. Sometimes a nickname as well.

Yeah, all this takes a lot of time, but I've been doing it for years, so, I've got plenty to work with, already filled away... plus back stories, etc.

I should mention though, that alien names are where it really gets interesting... I usually try to make up rules for how the particular race goes about names, and try to be as consistent as possible with adhering to those rules.

Here's a sample of that:

Dr. D'Evaan Ka N'Arrlan, Ex-Director of Panarr Medical, deceased
Dr. K'lann De F'Eyaad, Current Director of Panarr Medical
K'Arel De B'Ravalos, Ex-LEO, now self-employed "Transportation Specialist"
J'Heesta Ni V'Rane, Reporter, Panarr News Media
Vreet Tiché - a Zhaen. Her last employment was as a Thanagaron Sniper operating out of the Gannarr system.

See the pattern? Vreet's name doesn't use the same rules as the others.



O.H.

I tend to go on name websites as well, although sometimes names literally create themselves as I'm writing. I've made up half the names i use in my book and the internet continues to tell me they're not quite real. Other times when I write I leave NFC (name for character) in bold everytime I would write the name and only replace it when I've found the name that really suits the character. I manage a pool, and when I print off class lists for my staff I find a lot of very cool names there as well.

With this book, I started off just using letters as placeholders for names. AA for the main character, BB, CC etc. for the secondaries. I knew I would spend hours trying to find the right one and didn't want it to get in the way of just writing the first draft out. As I've got to know the characters better I have gradually been adding in names to try out. The compile replacement feature in Scrivener makes this very easy so I can replace AA with a name, read a chapter and see how it sounds but don't have to go back and manually change them if it's wrong.

In terms of actually finding the names I've used a variety of methods. Sites like nameberry and government statistics about common names for the relevant birth years and areas are handy for inspiration, others have just been off the top of my head or from things around me. My antagonist happens to have a surname the same as the author of a recipe book in my kitchen that I can see when I'm writing.