By now, I've seen this piece of advice quite a few times: Give your characters subtle trait-defining names, i.e give them names with a meaning. The name is supposed to reflect the character's main personality trait, the opposite of it, or reveal anything else imporant about them.
This approach makes sense for some of my characters who are a reincarnated version of themselves or someone else, especially since some people who named them are aware of their reincarnation or past life. So there are instances in which such a naming method might make sense. Also, in some cultures of my world, people tend to choose their name themselves when they are of certain age. Since it's fantasy I'm writing and reading about, this seemed like a cool concept to me.
Only recently did I talk to a friend about this way of naming from a logical standpoint, after I realized it's hard for me to think of a meaningful name for every relatively important character. Leaving out the example from my story, it normally doesn't make a lot of sense to give trait-defining names to characters, because who can tell at the birth of their child who they turn out to be when growing up? There's also the issue of finding a balance between the name being too on-the-nose and too cryptic. Most readers probably won't even notice or know the name's meaning if not explicitly pointed out (I assume?).
The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking about refraining from this naming method at least for the most characters in my story. There are other ways to make a name stand out, e.g. by regional distinctions or certain sound combinations.
What is your standpoint on this? And what is your way of naming characters?
This approach makes sense for some of my characters who are a reincarnated version of themselves or someone else, especially since some people who named them are aware of their reincarnation or past life. So there are instances in which such a naming method might make sense. Also, in some cultures of my world, people tend to choose their name themselves when they are of certain age. Since it's fantasy I'm writing and reading about, this seemed like a cool concept to me.
Only recently did I talk to a friend about this way of naming from a logical standpoint, after I realized it's hard for me to think of a meaningful name for every relatively important character. Leaving out the example from my story, it normally doesn't make a lot of sense to give trait-defining names to characters, because who can tell at the birth of their child who they turn out to be when growing up? There's also the issue of finding a balance between the name being too on-the-nose and too cryptic. Most readers probably won't even notice or know the name's meaning if not explicitly pointed out (I assume?).
The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking about refraining from this naming method at least for the most characters in my story. There are other ways to make a name stand out, e.g. by regional distinctions or certain sound combinations.
What is your standpoint on this? And what is your way of naming characters?