Naming my characters

For me, if I can't think of a good name for a character (or for that matter any other world element), I hold off on naming it. Instead, I give it a temporary name. Anything that is reasonably easy to type and remember, yet not too likely to show up in the text otherwise, works. The first priority for me here is to not lose momentum just because I can't think of a name for something at the spur of the moment. That's what editing is for.

One good tip I saw somewhere (but I have since forgotten where) is to mark such temporary names with a typeable character which won't appear elsewhere, and which you use consistently for that purpose. For example, you might mark them with an = sign as either a prefix or a suffix.

For me, I'll often turn to the NATO phonetic alphabet for ideas if I'm pressed for a name for something that is in-progress and for which I need a name right now. (Not least of which because it's a good 26 distinct words which I have memorized already.) Not all of those words are good names, and which ones actually work will depend on the story you're writing, but many of them are workable. You can probably easily get a dozen decent temporary names out of those.

Combining those two, while writing and needing a name right off the bat, I might type =Juliett and keep writing. Afterwards, while editing, I'll search for all occurences of = which will point me to the fact that I've used Juliett as a temporary name, and I'll also search for that to find all places where I've used it as a name. That makes giving (say) the character its final name little more than an exercise in search-and-replace, once I know what to name them, but doesn't put the pressure on me to name them at the moment they are first introduced.

Another thing I'll often do is to, while reading, maintain a running list of name ideas. This doesn't need to be anything fancy, and could just be a text file or a physical notebook. In it, I jot down whatever idea I see for a name, a brief note about its context and any meaning attached to it, and where I saw it (so I can go back and look it up again if necessary). When I need a name, I'll bring that list out and browse through it until I spot something that fits. I might end up using that name as-is, or I might end up tweaking it, but the name ideas list is a go-to resource when I need a name for something, be it a character, a country, a planet, or a species, and can spare the time to browse through the list.

posted over 5 years ago

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Canina‭

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I like to be semi-subversive in that most characters have non-meaningful names for the plot and anything out-of-universe, but they should mean something in-universe. Namely, they should fit the cultures and social status of the character.

As with the example of Harry Potter, JK Rowling sets up two sets of lives; muggles and wizards. With muggles, they generally have generic British names, and in the Dursleys' case, they go for something that sounds particularly low-class and unremarkable.

Contrast this with the wizarding families' names, which have a clear bent towards the fantastical and empathic. Malfoy sounds like it's evil (Mal), Slytherin is an obvious pun on slithering, Weasley sounds... well, weaselly. Therefore, in-universe, there's a clear distinction between the down-to-earth surnames like Potter, Granger, and Dursley, and the over-the-top wizard families.

In terms of how it works, separate the sounds of fictional surnames and think about how it makes you feel. I'll admit, there have been times where I've created characters and given them a blatantly meaningful name (that fits with the world), and honestly, it can be fun. Examples:

• Landon Shearwater: A taciturn king that acts as stable, unmoving ground with which the decadent, oftentimes idiotic royal court and kingdom swirls around. He is land, on sheer water. Landon Shearwater. He also governs from a coastal city, so his name being associated with a seabird has an in-universe reason.
• Kel'nas Sinhelios: A gloomy high elven lord whose family has died one by one around him. He is highly religious and poetic as a response to his many tragedies. His first name is a pun on elo (Hebrew for God) while his surname is a pun on sans helios, or 'without the sun'. In other words, a religious man whose sun has abandoned him.
• Ma of Manabhuk: An embodiment of the deadly sin Sloth, whose primary abilities involve inducing deadly, suicidal amounts of apathy within people. 'Ma ma' is Japanese for 'so-so' or 'whatever', the verbal equivalent of apathy.

Depending on the region of the world you're writing, you can get really creative; as long as it's part of the lexicon of the cultures you've created, it should work. A name, like everything, has a context. In ancient Israel, Gomer would be considered a feminine name. In the here and now it sounds like a bootleg version of the main character of the Simpsons.

Think about these things, and maybe the answer will come to you. Or maybe I've just rambled for no reason. We'll see.

posted over 5 years ago

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Matthew Dave‭

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Whether a name pops into my head, or I am stuck for one, I use a book, "The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook". It gives a lot of names, their country of origin, and something brief about what the names meant (originally). Or if nobody knows what they mean, the legend they came from or something like that.

I want my characters to have distinct names, seldom sound-alike or rhyming names unless there is a particular plot purpose for that, and I like their names to begin with different letters, if that is possible, or at minimum different first syllables.

Part of this is in case you do an audio-book of your story; you don't want people confusing "Gale" and "Gail".

I try to imagine my characters as much as I can first (without writing anything down, however), and I pick their names before I start writing. At least my MC, I often leave other names until later, and always leave side-character names until I get to the need for them.

To a great extent, it is not the "great name" that makes the character, but the character that makes the name.

You can see that in company names; "IBM" has a cachet but it is really just "International Business Machines", a very unimaginative name for a company. The same goes for AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph), the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), etc. The cachet for these names is about the legendary deeds they have done, it is not in the unimaginative, utilitarian names themselves. A similar thing holds for many character names. "Harry Potter" is an intentionally mundane name. But the personality, adventures, skills and intelligence of the character (and the success of the books) creates the air of reverence, respect and affection for it.

posted over 5 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Amadeus‭

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It's a good idea to decide early on on a naming scheme. That is, do you want names that sound like they belong to a particular time and place? Particular times and places (plural) for various groups within your story? Do you want names that are almost real, but not quite? (For example Eddart, from G.R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire is almost, but not quite, Edward.) Do you want names that are very clearly not RL names (e.g. Severus Snape)? Do you want names that give a subtle hint about something pertaining to the character?

The reason you want to have a framework early on is twofold: first, within some frame of reference it's easier to pick a name than within the infinite possibilities of letter combinations that could potentially be names. Second, when you have such a frame, the names sound like they all "belong together" - they're all from the same world. Having a mix of regular and irregular names can work (the trope is known as Aerith and Bob), but only if it's a deliberate choice.

As for particular names, they come eventually. Don't be afraid to start with something that more or less fits your intention, and then change it later if you find something better. For example, Strider (Aragorn) was originally named Trotter. And Frodo was originally Bingo.

posted over 5 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Galastel‭

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