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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46200
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46200
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

## Have more faith in your process, but run it by others.

Rufus Drake is a great name. It has personality, it's easy to pronounce and it's memorable. It's not uncommon but the combination isn't going to be used much. There's nothing wrong with the name Michael Brown. I bet the million other Michael Browns agree. It's awfully generic though.

Google and research and use your friends for inspiration. Those are all good approaches.

Once you have your names, use them a while to see if they sit well. Google them to make sure they're not famous (or infamous) people or other known characters (pretty much all names will exist in real life and/or in fiction, so don't worry about that, just avoid known ones or full names that match people you know personally).

Now run them by your critique group, beta readers, friends or family. If anything stands out as weird, you want to know earlier rather than later.

For names from a culture other than yours, run them by people from the culture you're using. If you're not French, for example, do a check with a French friend to make sure the name you choose sounds plausible. Google and other searches help here too; if there are people with that name (or the given and then the surname) on Facebook, for example, and they're from your target country, then you know it's a legitimate name.

For screen names of various sorts, try to avoid duplicates of existing names if the name is anything more complex than John54. Those will be part of the personality of the character, but a lot of people choose names that were suggested by the application or were a joke or had meaning 10 years ago and stuck, so don't overthink it.

Sometimes it's best to just throw names out and see if they stick. Working too hard on it can lead to the paralysis you are experiencing. Check them later but create them quickly. After a while, your intuition will kick in and naming will be easier.

Original score: 14