Weird things you named your characters and why.

[Courtney]

Here's something for the writers in this group - What were strange names you gave your characters and why did you go with them?

[C.E.]

for the fifth book in my pulp-horror series I gave five villains really, really weird names; e.g. Ah-Moowatt.

I based the names on Aramaic from one of those free online translators then tweked them a little. Ah-Moowatt is supposed to mean death, and as it turns out the character bears an uncanny resemblance to Kali, the Hindu goddess.

I chose Aramaic as the characters were supposed to be prehistoric/antediluvian creatures, and my research pointed to Aramaic as one of the oldest langauges.

I repeated this schtick in the next book in the series, with a super-hippy; a tree elemental that wanted to eradicate mankind by creating a zombie virus. Her name is Decklaa, which again is a tweaked Aramaic, for Tree. What was funny was I typed Tree as I wrote then went back and Find and replaced when i was done. But i missed one, so at one point the novel called her "tree". Thankfully, one of my readers spotted it before the book had been bought more than a couple of times.

Whoops.

[Shaun]

One of the people in my current work-in-progress is named Jennifer DeLance. She's a wanna-be witch that badly screws up a dark ritual. I just got a good chuckle out of the idea that 3/4th's of her name is Fer-De-Lance, like the venomous snake.

[L.G.]

I've named characters Hungarian names before because I liked the sound of it and the region they come from is similar to Hungary. I've also given Babylonian names a go.

[C.E.]

LG, where'd you find Babylonian names?

[Justin]

I can make up some odd names right from the top of my head but when I cant I look into old books.
I look into Egyptian encyclopedias and football stat books for names and pair them together. Seems weird right? It's given me some very unique names!

[C.E.]

Mixing up football names is smart... I like to mix up the names of agents that gave me rejections and use them as redshirts. ;)

[Robb]

In my ever ongoing attempted novel, the antagonist is a poor psychotic who has managed to successfully use religion to curb his tendencies after the first messy murder... Unfortunately when the implant in his brain winds up channeling a strange entity... it's a bit complicated, but their relationship leads to the character becoming virtually omnipotent and believing he is chosen by God to cleanse the earth and save people... mostly by killing or feeding on them.

Just juggling around some names I had and reusing a last name from a character I stopped using... I named him Jacob Callow.

It didn't occur to me till later that his initials are JC. And I found that hilarious.

Sadly I'm not likely to keep using JC, as I'm trying to shift from a weird sci-fi futuristic superheroish story to a more conventional horror taking place in modern day (new scientific achievements are making the whole sci-fi thing way too frustrating... and the parts of the story I like most involve the heroine being scared out of her wits)...
But that naming was one of the happiest-- and possibly most offensive to some people-- coincidences of my years-long hobby.

[L.G.]

C.E. wrote: "LG, where'd you find Babylonian names?"

You can find bits and pieces here and there, but this is where I found mine: http://www.20000-names.com/male_babyl...

[Justin]

Using old names from places and times like Babylon, Egypt, Rome and Greece are good. It adds a totally new name that probably hasnt been used in a long time and it ties in with history. Names need to be original and fresh and what better way then to go back in the old days and use them.

[Justin]

Every thread Im the last to comment in on here lol.

Any hoo..for my upcoming novel, The Wax Factory I've given the antagonist an odd but intriguing name. His name is Gustav Vandaldrake. Where'd I get the last name? It just sorta popped into my head. His great grandfathers name is Ghyslaine(Zees-lane) I looked up names and came across that and thought it was cool sounding.

[Perry]

For my upcoming book, I had to largely develop a Goblin/Ghoul language. I used that language to create or extrapolate names. Like Bargush means red-fire and from this comes our word, barguest.

But the hero of my next book is Hugo Krantz. I gave him the same last name as the lady who ran the comic book shop I used to haunt.

[Justin]

Making up your own language I imagine can be fun but difficult. I usually stick with looking up other languages besides English.

I love finding weird names for characters too.

[Lee]

The namesake of my debut novel is called Azdaja. It's a mythical beast from Serbian folklore that is pure, unadulterated, evil...and is VERY fitting!

“Aždaja or Aždaha (from Persian) sometimes ala or hala is generally considered to be a creature separate from dragons and a polar opposite to them in its nature. It is a being of pure evil, a dragon-like beast and dreadful monster with no reason that usually lives in dark and hostile places or guards unreachable locations in fairy-tales. It is often multi-headed (with three, seven or nine heads) and breathes fire.”

[Dana]

Ahtriavelozxhorgthma is the name of an alien race I created for my newest novel, but the protagonist (and the audience) had such difficulty pronouncing it, that she suggested he abbreviate it to 'Ahtria'.

[Justin]

wow that's a long word! lol

[Dana]

Yeah, I'm not sure why, but with aliens I tend to give them a long difficult name to make it seem more... alien, and then offer a shorter nickname.

[Dannibal]

I have only written fanfiction (hope that counts) for the Hannibal fandom. In a short ficlet I recently written, the characters Hannibal and Will Graham had to have aliases that they were living under. I gave Hannibal a Lithuanian name Vadimas Juska (Vadimas meaning "the knowing one"), since Hannibal is supposed to be from Lithuania originally; I felt he would choose a Lithuanian name to maintain a connection to his dead sister Mischa. Will Graham I gave the name Jonathan, after the author Jonathan Swift who wrote "A Modest Proposal" (which in the story he proposed cannibalism to solve the population and poverty problems in Ireland; it was satire of course).

[Jay]

I'm not sure why, but in my stories people whose names are variations of Steve end up being cannon fodder.

[Justin]

For my upcoming western horror short story I've given my characters some very weird but unique names. The main character whose a vampire is named Richard Morbius, his right hand man is named Driskel Tronskey(no idea where I came up with that) and a werewolf Indian named Talbot Tecumseh.

[J.J.]

Maybe not that strange, but in one book, I used a naming convention where every name had one vowel replaced with an apostrophe.

[Diane]

Don't know if these count as strange, but I had neighbors named Owen Grunion and Petunia Whipple in a script I wrote. Sad sack vs. ray of sunshine. The script also had a flamingo (pink) named Floyd... I tend to write horror, but this was a kid's movie.

[[deleted user]]

I've named one of my characters Jayjay Hatenfuck. He is a tank commander, war criminal, sadist, sexual pervert, mass murderer and basically the paramount of depravity in a world populated by depraved characters. I guess I picked the name because it sounds both badass and programmatic.

Another character bears the name Bomber Beuys (or Beuys Bomber). He is a former war hero fallen from grace and once commanded an entire haunebu fleet (a haunebu is a kind of nazi flying saucer) before being shot down over enemy territoriy and going native. The name was partially inspired by German Fluxus artist Joseph Beuys, who fought in WWII and whose sturzkampfbomber was shot down over the Crimean area. Allegedly, he spent some time living amonst the Crimean Tartars after his plane crashed.

[Clint]

I have a character in my book named Jaime Sackett a tribute to my best drums and a tip of my hat to Louis Lamour the famous western author.

[Clint]

Sorry that was supposed to my best friend not drums. Lol

[Justin]

One of the characters in my current book The Wax Factory is called Ghyslain Vandaldrake. Don't even ask me where I got it cause I don't even know lol.

I also once named a mummy for a short story Akarumetake(A-kar-ra-met-a-kay) Took me weeks just to pronounce it correctly!)