How To Name Your Characters

I had such an amazing response to my Creating Character Profiles video that I wanted to keep talking about characters. While plot is what essentially holds the story together, characters are equally as important. Honestly, mapping out your characters isn’t as difficult as it seems. Normally, you already have an idea in your head as to what that character is going to be like and how they’re going to behave throughout your story. I actually think that picking names for my characters is harder than mapping out their traits. So today, I’m going to provide you with 8 tips to help you name your characters.

If you'd rather watch the video on this topic, feel free to click play below. Otherwise, read on!

1.       Complete your character profilea.       If you’ve watched my previous video on Creating Character Profiles, then you’ll know how important it is to map out your characters and all their traits before naming them. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it and will leave the link in the description box below. It’s important that you know who your character is, what their flaws are, what makes them tick, and what their background story is. Just picking any good ol’ name doesn’t always work. Map your characters our first. It’ll be much easier to pick a name that suits them.
2.       Get your era righta.       If you need a name for a 20-year old flapper in the 1920s, you probably wouldn’t name her Chloe or Jessica. You’d go with something from that era, like Margaret, Helen, Ruth, or Anna. Browse for names in the era you’re writing. This is incredibly simple to do on Google. You can search “Popular girl’s/boy’s names for ___” and type in the year.
3.       Mind the genrea.       Similarly to number 2, you must mind the genre you’re writing in. Say you’re writing historical fiction set in Victoria era England. Names like George, John, Rose, Charles, Samuel, and Edith might come to mind. Now let’s imagine you’re writing science fiction set in colonized Mars circa 2095, much further in the future. Names might be a little harder to come up with, but I’m assuming no “Edith’s” made the list. But names like Ambrose, Kel, Stone, or Caris might sound more realistic. Since it’s set in a future that no one knows, you have more wiggle room to predict trends in names.
4.       Check root meaningsa.       It’s better to call a character Caleb, which means “faithful” than to overkill it by naming him Loyal or Goodman, unless you want to do that for ironic/comedic purposes. Even the readers who don’t know the name’s root meaning will probably sense it as they’re reading your story.
5.       Utilize different languagesa.       If you find yourself getting stuck, or using the same couple of last names, try taking certain qualities of your character and converting those qualities to different languages. My favorite language to do this is Latin. For example, if your character is a firefighter, then look up the Latin word for fire. Jason Smith just became Jason Ignis. This doesn’t work all the time, but if you’re really stuck, I would recommend it.
6.       Think of your favorite wordsa.       Your favorite words can also be used to help you discover character names. Does your character love astronomy? Maybe name him or her Orion, like Orion’s belt. Think of the adorable, rambunctious teacup named Chip in Beauty and The Beast. Chip can also be used as a name for a cute and talkative little girl. Sometimes the words you really like can be used as character names, or you can make a variation of them work as well. For example, for my female protagonist in THE ALPHA DRIVE, I’ve always thought the word “emerald” sounded really pretty (not to mention it’s my birthstone). At the same time though, it sounded a little too elegant, especially for the badass heroine I was trying to create. So I used a variation and named her Emery.
7.       Create a themea.       Sometimes, creating a theme for your character’s names can help. Think about Suzanne Collins when she wrote The Hunger Games: Katniss, Primrose, Rue, Gale. It seems that she had a theme based on plants and flowers when naming her characters. If your characters are Italian, maybe you can focus on Italian foods and seasonings like Olive, Rosemary, Pepper, and Basil. Okay, that might be a terrible example, but you get the point.
8.       Be dissimiliara.       Whether you’ve got three characters or 30, give each one a uniquely different sounding name. That means no Bob and Ben. No Laurie and Lauren. No Adam and Aden. Why? Readers don’t actually read the entire word. They’ll stop at L, for example, understanding it to be Laurie. But, if you introduce a new character, Lauren, now the reader must read the entire word and then take time to remember the differences between the two characters. This can be tiring and can take away from the pleasure of reading your book. 
So there you have it, 8 tips to help you name your characters. That’s all that I have for you guys today. Thanks for reading! Don't forget to check out both THE ALPHA DRIVE and THE ORDER OF OMEGA on your way out. As always, I will see you in the next post!


Until next time,