Character Naming: Procrastinating At Its Finest

Where do your characters’ names come from? Do they spontaneously pop into your head first and you just know that that person is connected to a story? Does the story come first and the perfect names follow? Do you write that story with Jane/John Doe 1, 2, 3…? Or do you recycle names? Or, are you like me, and you spend hours picking character names because you need to find the perfect ones first and you cannot write without them? I’m always relieved when one pops into my head, but it happens so rarely.

I think character names are an important place to start in story writing, especially if you’re like me. Thinking about their significance to you is also important. As I’ve said before, you need to know your process, you need to understand how you work to be more effective. For me, character naming is part of my research, and it’s also part procrastination. It’s a pre-step to story time that I love “wasting” precious hours on. Yet, when you’re trying to write alongside school and/or work you really need all the time you can get. And you need to maximize it.

I’ve got a few shortcuts to character naming I’ve carved out over the past few years. I’ll share them because I think they’ll help you get closer to the nitty gritty of writing faster. Again, if you’re like me, you need the help.

I will admit here and now that I am an etymology nerd. I love names (words really) and learning about their meanings, cultural significance, and how they’ve changed over time. And the best part about this is that the internet has made learning this info so much simpler! You can just Google names from whatever cultural background your character has and a great list is generated for you.

My hands down favourite site is . Not only do they provide names and their meanings/histories, names are sorted alphabetically by culture and/or gender (with cross-references!). Baby name sites are also a handy resource when you’re being indecisive.

But, what if you want names specific to a region, you ask? Especially a region like North America that is made up of multiple ethnicities. My ultimate, #1 tip for such a request: cemetery records for the town (or area near your imaginary town) you’re writing about. If you look up a town/city’s website you should be able to locate such information through that. Or Google search the city’s cemetery records directly. Historical fiction writers should remember this.

All of this is applicable to surnames as well. Another thing I do is write names down while watching reality TV (which is again helpful with regions). Or, depending on what kind of day job you work, if you’re exposed to names a lot you can start generating a list that way.

I’m curious to hear how other people tackle naming their characters, so comment away! I hope for your sake you don’t approach it like you’re trying to decide what to call your first born, like I do.