How do you name your characters?

[KellyB]

I have been trying to think of names for my characters for a story idea I have, and I am curious how others name their characters.

Do you just make up something, use regular names, use names that actually mean something (i.e. taking a Latin word for something and then tweaking it so it sounds like a name), or do you go the George RR Martin route and take a regular name and change some of the letters (Peter = Petyr, Edward = Eddard, etc.)?

I'm mostly curious about having character names that mean something. Do a lot of you do that?

 

[Jabrosky]

I usually take names from the real-world culture that most closely corresponds to my characters'.

 

[Ailith]

Depends on your setting, but I tend to use real names based on their meanings. For my current WIP I use a lot of Old English/Middle English names. Looking back to Latin root words is a good strategy as well. I'm not good at making up my own names out of thin air, so searching for names by their meanings works well for me.

I tend to spend a lot of time on baby name websites researching names. It's fun to see what's out there, and often you can search by meanings and country of origin, which speeds up the process. Good luck on your name hunt!

 

[Steerpike]

I think Petyr is a Greek variant of Peter, isn't it?

I've seen Eddard as a surname; I don't know if it was used otherwise prior to Martin.

I either make up a name entirely or browse around name sites until I see something of interest.

 

[Ireth]

It really depends on the setting and the story. Sometimes I choose names I like the look or the sound of, and sometimes I choose names that are meaningful to the characters, like a girl named Ariel (after the Little Mermaid) who is a good singer, or a dark-haired man named Fiachra (which means "raven").

 

[Kelise]

Some names just come to me out of seemingly nowhere. If they don't, I make something up made from a few different names depending on their meanings.

For instance: Asenth Mariti Dunstan. ‘Asenath’ meaning ‘devoted’ (also biblical). ‘Mari’ meaning ‘easy’, ‘ti’ from many ‘quiet’ names. ‘Dunstan’ meaning ‘Dark’ and ‘rare’.

 

[The Dark One]

It depends on the story. My first novel was about an actuary who, in the pursuit of his extremely esoteric duties, devolves into a savage paleolithic style existence. I needed a name that suited both of his incarnations so he was Doug Monger, who eventually became Dugmunga. The sound of a name is important to me. The rest of the names in that story were mostly one syllable names I made up that (via some vague affective connotation) seemed to suit the character (eg, Sigmund Drell or William Janx).

In my second (and thus far most successful) novel, my wife complains that too many characters' names start with B. Don't know how that happened but the names just seemed to be invented simultaneously with the characters.

In my most recently finished novel (not yet published) I was actually quite careful with the invention of names. The main character's name is Morgen - which I chose because in German it means both morning and tomorrow. Dual poosibilities are important to the story. (His surname is Tanjenz - and you can guess why that's important.) There are other names also which were carefully chosen to go with the various characters: Blacksnake, Xeno, Don Affridge, Feargol Lukic (known to his underlings as Faecal Leakage), but reflecting on the female characters, they have much straighter names: Mandy, Clair McLoon (nee Bowyer), Dorothy. Mind you there is also Stacey, who insists on being called Alice...and all of them have quirks that make their names appropriate.

In the historical novel I'm half way through, set in Saxon times, all the characters have real Saxon, Norman or Celtic names.

Yes...it depends on the type of story.

 

[Helen]

Katniss in Hunger Games.
Gekko in Wall Street.

The names are designed to imply something about character.

 

[Mindfire]

I draw names from many sources. Some of them, like Reuben, Kianna, and Elias, I adapt. Others I make up, like Blythwaine, Deowa, and Sikeda. I rarely if ever choose names based on meaning anymore because, IMO, it serves no purpose except as an in-joke. And what reader is going to have a working knowledge of linguistics/etymology? Very few. Instead, I try to choose names based on the way they sound. A name should be instantly evocative of the character it represents. Syllables are more important in my name creation process than obscure meanings. However, I may adapt or create a name and then invent a pseudo-meaning that fits the character*. And, as I've said in other threads, it's always good to name your characters consistent with the culture they come from. Different cultures have different syllabic patterns in their names. Exploiting that fact is an easy way to help readers tell characters and cultures apart.


*In my MC's native language "Reuben" means "red gaze", whereas in real life the name means "behold, a son." I'm invoking suspension of disbelief here obviously. But I don't think it's too unbelievable, given the "reu" part of the name.

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

Sometimes the character has a name to begin with, sometimes I really have to work to find the right name. I mostly make them up, but also use a few names from our world as well, the main ones being Sigmund, Ruby, and Armando. When building a name I tend to just play around with a shortlist of syllables which sound appropriate, until I've got something I like.

Have you found this place yet? Behind the Name: Meaning of Names, Baby Name Meanings

 

[TWErvin2]

A lot of the name choice leans on the world--and even cultures within that world, and what would be appropriate.

Beyond that, I think a name helps a reader identify with a character, picture them in their mind's eye. So I think a name has to 'fit' the character, to a certain extent.

I internally brain storm, saying a few names. Sometimes I use a name that seems to work, but after a chapter or section, something better comes to mind, seems more on target, and that's what I go with. I never let not having just the right name slow me up from getting the story written.

 

[Claire]

I've made up names and found names on baby name websites. The thing I keep in mind is I want the pronounciation to be fairly easy to figure out. It won't always turn out that way I suppose, but I don't want to use names that the reader will invariably stumble over or easily get wrong. Like I have always thought the name Saoirse looks really cool, but it is pronounced "Seer-sha" and I seriously doubt most readers would get that. In their heads, they'd be saying, "Sao-ir-say" or something like that. I want the reader to have a shot at getting the name right.

 

[studentofrhythm]

Mindfire, have you read Tristram Shandy? There's an interesting bit near the beginning where Tristram's father talks about his philosophy of naming children. This idea of names evoking the character is what drives people to take stage names, isn't it? I imagine that in cultures that assign names later than right after birth, a similar idea motivates.

As for me, oh do I ever do a lot of work on names. Of course that's because I insist that they make sense internally according to a system, so I have to make up at least some minimal lexicons and then decide on basic morphological rules. One big turnoff for me is names that appear contrived (one of my problems with Wheel of Time).

Spelling is worth thinking about! We're writing in English, with all the confusing irregularities of our use of the Roman alphabet. Unless you're writing historical or low/urban fantasy, it's a fair bet your characters ain't using the same script. (If an author hasn't thought about what kind of writing system their characters use, I have a hard time mustering much interest.) So you should consider yourself as translating or at the very least transliterating the story every bit as much as telling it, even if you don't speak another language yourself.

The fantasy name generator thread is useful on this subject. And I'm gonna go open another thread on the spelling question.

 

[Leif GS Notae]

Mine's easy: I have a few English to (insert language here) dictionaries handy. When the character is being to shy/stubborn to introduce themselves, I get a general feel and search the books to get something close. They usually get louder when I get closer until they can't seem to shut up when I get the name right.

Tyveld and Kirtenia were the ones in my last flash fiction series I wrote, one was Norwegian combination and the other was Japanese.

Also, to save money and library space: Google Translate.

 

[Feo Takahari]

My name is almost exclusively used for idiotic comic relief characters, and I was overjoyed the one time someone used it as the name for a hero. As such, I often name my characters at random, especially in stories set in modern America. My only hard rule is that characters from the same culture should have names that fit the same conventions.

 

[Erica]

I tend to take names from cultures (like celtic) that are similar in some ways to my fantasy culture that the character lives in or is descended from. I also take the Martin approach and use 'old fashioned' or 'less common' spellings of 'real world' names ... again trying to keep them in line with the 'feel' for my culture. If I can find a name that has a special meaning that seems to fit, so much the better.

Every now and then I slip in a completely made up from scratch name, but I usually present those as a 'nickname' for a more conventional name within the character's culture.

 

[Graylorne]

In my main fantasy world the names are mostly made-up, but fitting in the background of each country. So people from one country have vaguely Hungarian-sounding names, others Russian, German or names like DeGry, DeAsharte. Often they just pop up in my head while I'm writing, but sometimes I have to search the internet for it. And then, indeed, sites like Behind the Name are invaluable.

 

[Kaellpae]

The names I decided on for my three main characters were a variation of reasonings for names.

Ozzie - I was looking up mythological creatures and an entry caught my eye. Aziza are a tiny human-like creature that gives good luck to hunters, but the part that caught my eye was that the name means "Near to god" which I took as "Almost a god" which is the role that I wanted him to take in his arc.

Devan - From Wheel of Time, but spelled different, the town Deven Ride. I liked the sound of it and when I imagine Devan he seems like he could have come from a town like that.

Pershing Flyn - Pershing is Robert Wadlow's middle name. He's the tallest man recorded officially by Guinness. The character is a "giant." Flyn comes from a play on words between his pet's name, Stella. Flyn and Stella = Flint and Steel.

Other than those three names I just randomly choose or try to make my own names.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I decide on a culture to mimic, and then go find names from baby name lists for that culture. Then I adapt them.

For example, in my NIP, I'm using a lot of Albanian names, but some of them sound much to obviously Islamic. E.g. "Dardan" doesn't have associations for Western audiences, but "Muzaffer" sounds sort of specifically Arab. "Zamira" sounds a little too off-world, but remove the Z and you get "Amira" which sounds sort of vaguely foreign without too many specific assocations.

 

[ascanius]

I have different language's per region and race so don't use any English. While I don't have the actual languages even started yet, the farthest I have gotten is pronunciation keys. I have an idea of what each language and even dialect sounds like in my head. For instance I have one race that favors sharp consonantal stops, and in general is more glottal concerning consonants. So what I do is like just start babbling like a baby following those rules for that type of sound. When I find something I like then I use it. The only problem with this is I tend to over use certain consonant if I'm not careful. In general I'm fairly good at coming up with names. My biggest problem is trying to come up with simple common names like fred, amy, smith, etc for each language.