How many characters do you name, and based on what?

[Fidel]

This question is asked purely out of curiosity, as I don't believe there is a right or a wrong approach. It was prompted by an activity today, as I have sifted through my work-in-progress to decide which characters I ought to remove, unify or adapt. Part of this process entails the removal of names of those characters I deemed too inconsequential to burden my reader with. I based these decisions on a simple consideration. Namely, does the character feature in two or more chapters that aren't directly linked (for example, chapters 5 and 12, not 5 and 6), and are they physically present in those scenes? This culled family and friends of characters who otherwise had no role in the story, relegating them to "son of" or "wife of." I believe this cuts down on clutter, reducing the amount of mental juggling I ask from the audience. In regards to the second point, historical characters are of course partially excused, though even with them I prefer their presence to be physical in a sense (monuments, icons, armour, etc...). All in all, I wager I will be left with just over twenty named characters once this tale is complete (most being contemporary). So now I turn the question to you. What is your approach?

That sounds like a solid approach to keeping things streamlined! Cutting down on unnecessary names definitely helps avoid overwhelming the reader. I tend to keep names for characters who have a real impact, but I like your rule about non-consecutive chapters, makes a lot of sense!

 

[pmmg]

In consideration of Finch's position on this, I have been making an effort to name a lot of the superfluous characters to see what it adds. And well, some did gain a little more personality from it, but some feel a bit stuffed in just to find a way to mention it. I am gonna look to keep doing this though. There will still be some who never get named, but not as many.

Maybe when all the action figures come out, I'll let Hasbro figure it out.