Unique character names - yes or no?

[Bláthnaid]

I love an unusual name in a book!

[Anna]

I'm terrible at remembering names (that goes for my life outside the books as well hehe) so I don't mind a few unusual names but if they are all too similar or if they all look like someone randomly slapped the keyboard, chances are I'll loose track at some point.

I read a book recently that introduced me to about 7 different people in a couple of paragraphs, and none of the names were the "usual" kind. A couple of pages later I had no clue who was who anymore. But this was quite an extreme case; there was a character named Olthar and another called Olthaar who were two completely different people and not at all related. A Gondar and a Gondabar. A Darthor and a Dakon. I took a print at some of the names and that's the only reason I can remember them right now hahaha

[Kiara]

I love inusual names in books!!!!

[zo]

For me its yes but no. I cannot remember the simplest names in a book for the life of me so when the name is harder than yikes. but I like them I just can't remember them

[Sophie]

I like them, it makes it easier to remember for me, and if I mention the name to a reader who's read different book they'll know who I'm talking about (It's not a name that a ton of book characters have)

[maya]

My opinion is pretty similar to what others have said. I like unique names but not so unique that I can barely pronounce it and need a dozen pronunciation guides to settle on one. For example, I like Jesper, Kaz and Inej, but I find Chaol and even Celaena quite odd as names. (kay-all, coal; selena, sell-ay-nah?)

[Amanda]

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with unique character names, lol. I guess it depends on multiple things for me. I definitely prefer a name that’s easy to pronounce (or at least a pronunciation guide). I like names that have meaning. When I was reading the Selection, the main characters name is America. The name wasn’t really explained until later on. I won’t give any spoilers but knowing the meaning and significance of her name definitely made me enjoy it much more! I also prefer a name that’s nice and pretty so I can steal some ideas for my own future children lol.

[Sam]

I don't mind unique names as long as I can pronounce them. Like Maresh, Orion, Nimue, Eowyn, Arwen.
but I couldn't pronounce the characters from Branden Sanderson 's Elantris

[Sophia]

I read a lot of contemporary books so I don't really see unique names. But I don't have a problem with unique names I think it adds something unique to the book.

[iffat]

• Ari • wrote: "I love unique fantasy names because sometimes when I read two books they have the same names and that is weird. For example Rowan from ToG and Rowan from Scythe."

i highly agree

[Michael]

On the last edit of my book, Skid Kids, I decided to name one of the minor characters Democulus. He had been referred to by his racing number 1611 throughout the book but I needed to name him because he’s coming back in book 2.

Well it lasted about a week. As much as I liked the name, it just didn’t sit right for this character. Now he’s Demo which is essentially a nickname of Democulus. Anyway, I thought I’d share because there’s just a few names as an author that you lose sleep over!

[xenniat]

Inside YA I would find it weirder to find a 900 yo fairy named Jake honestly lol

If the characters are human of human descent and everything It does make sense for them to have common names though.

[Jenna Marie ~Scheming Scribbler~]

I really like having unique names for the characters. I write/read a lot of historical fiction taking place all around the world, and I love it when the names are ones I haven't heard before, and that are unique to that place. For example, Sheftu (Mara, Daughter of the Nile)!

[Sienna]

Unique names are great until you have to say them out loud.

[Jenna Marie ~Scheming Scribbler~]

Sienna wrote: "Unique names are great until you have to say them out loud."

True lol

[ayyyitsabook]

I personally love unique names in fantasies🪄🌻 (cuz I want the writer to take me to a different world so unique stuff is appreciated) A lot of the times the names sound very pretty and satisfying, however if they’re very hard to pronounce then it becomes annoying. 👾

[rowan]

unique character names are awesome and they always sound so pretty but i think it’s always good if at the back/front there is a glossary to help you pronounce them

[iamaunicornwithyellowfeet]

i don't mind them, but i feel like sometimes authors try too hard to make the names different

[Sophie]

Yes! They make the world seem so much more unique and the names are usually so pretty. However, they’re always my favorite thing until I try to pronounce some of them lol

[Lil]

I love them but it is a little frustrating when I don't have a clue on how to begin pronouncing.

[[deleted user]]

Kingly wrote: "I love them but it is a little frustrating when I don't have a clue on how to begin pronouncing."

lol mee too! that's the most frustrating thing about the names

[[deleted user]]

I just care if the name matches the character.

[Miles]

I really love unique names, especially in fantasy, but if it's a current-day book and there's a character who is referred to as an inanimate object to try and make them quirky I lose it

[emilia ♡]

sometimes i will completely butcher the pronunciation, but I love looking up the meanings! especially if they match the character

[Ayesha]

yes, popular names are not interesting.

[Aeduliudaen]

The ones with signification are the best. Definitely YES

[T ✩ Handmaiden Of Amidala]

I love seeing niche, not well-known names in books especially when they mean something unique in a not so popular/ancient language.

But I hate it when authors take a common name and change a few letters to make it unnecessarily long. Imo it feels like a lazy to make a basic character seem quirky. (imagine Timothy is written as Timmertheé, for example.)

[C.]

Yes- but to a certain extent. Like in TBOSAS, I just read Coriolanus as 'C'...

[Monika]

Ok, so here is my opinion:
Yes, I find them incredibly beautiful and interesting.
However, in one book my limit is 1-2 really unusual names. If there are more, it just becomes very confusing and annoying.

[Vismaya]

I looove unique names in books!!

[Olivia]

I like unique character names when they feel earned. I feel like sometimes the setting for the book doesn't need super unique names but they push really hard anyways and it doesn't feel quite right. I felt like the Dauntless books tried way too hard to be the Hunger games and they names felt forced and weird.
I also don't like it if too many characters have unique names instead of just one or two.

[Alita]

I like... some unique names. I draw the line at colors and numbers. Blue from The Raven Cycle rubbed me the wrong way, and I have read two or three YA books where one of the main characters was named Ten. And let's not forget about Four from Divergent!

I don't know why these two categories specifically get to me because, in general, I do enjoy cool names or words that aren't normally names being used that way (I recently came across a girl named Theta and loved that).

[Samantha]

it really depends... I need to be able to easily figure out the pronunciation

[➺ kath [ia]]

I love unique names, only if they’re simplistic enough and it also depends on what it means (like belly in the summer I turned pretty💀)

[Gracelynn]

I like them sometimes. If it is a name that fits the character, then that is fine, like Bellatrix from Harry Potter. If it is a name that makes sense for the character, that is also fine, like Katniss from the Hunger Games. But if it is a name like Bluestar from Warriors, then it just seems stupid and like they are trying to hard (I only know the name because I Googled it). If there are too many people with confusing names, then the whole book just becomes confusing (this is just in reference to names that no one in real life has, not for names from other cultures besides my own that I might not be familier with. Names that people actually call people are totally fine).

[Tabea]

I think the name should fit character and setting.
If it is contemporary, a usual name is perfectly acceptable.
If it is fantasy, uniqueness may fit the invented cultures: e.g. son of someone as in Norse mythology Thor Odinson or (as someone already mentioned) different sounding names for orcs vs elves or for different cultures within the fantasy world. However, a normal-ish nickname does help a lot when reading and not stumbling upon those names every time.

Uniqueness imho depends a lot on the culture. For me as a German, a completely common African or Asian name (think John Smith) can be very unique and uncommon as I am not from there and surrounded by Johann Schmidts. Not condoning simply taking those names in an English country side setting as that would be cultural appropriation.
Translating unique names can be very difficult though. Now don’t hate me for bringing up Harry Potter but the naming of characters and places is linguistically very interesting. For the longest time, I did not understand why Diagon Alley = diagonally (translated as Winkelgasse = alleyway of angles) or Hogwarts = warts on wild male pig (translated as-is) were funny or why Hermione was so difficult to pronounce (Hermine as an old-fashioned normal German name). I imagine more subtle jokes like Snape (sounds like snake) escaped a lot of young non-English readers.
A unique name can even have an unwanted connotation, like Suri, the daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes: princess in Persian but pickpocket in Japanese…

[Demyana ❦ (دميانه)]

If I can pronounce it, hell yeah.
if I can not pronounce then please stop .
Champion of fate is my cr and I have a huge confusion Than I can't pronounce any name of it .

[Annette]

Depends on the setting and on their origin and purpose, for example.

I am annoyed at slice-of-life characters having weird names for no particular rhyme or reason, especially if this weirdness is never addressed within the story (ex: Hardin Scott).

I am fine with a character having a weird name in a fantasy book that is still grounded in our world, especially if it relates to the story as a whole (ex: Perseus Jackson)

I am okay with a weird name in a full fantastic setting, though, nitpicking, I tend to be annoyed when the name does not relate to the setting of the story. Celaena is much more fitting to the very fairy-tale-esque setting of the throne of glass than Locke Lamora for the fantasy Renaissance Italian world of the Lies of Locke Lamora.

and I EXPECT weird names in a science-fiction futuristic worlds, (ex: Jinx)

[Annette]

Also, I am annoyed at historical characters having wrong names, for example, Victoria from Twilight, could not have been from the 1500s in England as Victoria only came into fashion due to Queen Victoria 300 years later

[Meg]

I think it depends entirely on the setting and the reason for the name being unique. If you have a real life story set in the 1800s with a commoner as a protagonist? No, it makes absolutely no sense. If your story is set in a fantasy world with dragons and knights and a kingdom not on earth? Of course unique names make sense, they may not even be all that unique in your world. What I am more fond of, though, is regional variants. You want to call your main character 'James' but want them to be from Ireland? Consider Seamus instead, for example.

[Charlie]

I love it except if there are two characters with similar names because it's hard to recognize them.

[Ööö]

Mehsi wrote: "I don't mind unique names, love them even, but they need to be pronounceable. It really gets me out of a story if a character has a name that I just don't know how to pronounce. I keep stumbling ov..."

I agree

[Zaii]

I like unique names, but sometimes it gets like too much. I also enjoy reading about characters with common names

[amanda frekot]

Depends. If I can't pronounce it in my head, then no. But if it is just not a name I've heard before, then that's fine.

[Claire]

I kind of like when names are unique, even though they can be really hard to pronounce sometimes…though every once in a while there’ll be a name that’s just a no from me.

[Bailey]

I like it, but I do find that I have mispronounced them many times, haha.

[»-daly (leaving)→]

If u like unique names, Verity is DEFINITELY the way to go. The main character’s name is Lowen, which is a name I have never heard of. Verity Crawford is the wife of Jermey, who has three kids: twins, named Harper and Chastain, and a little boy named Crew. Lowen also had an affair with a man named Cory, which is pretty uncommon anymore. ⚠️WARNING⚠️ If you do choose to read this book, I HIGHLY recommend it, but there is intense sexual content. I had to skip through bits of it because it got to be too much. The book is called Verity by Colleen Hoover, and I give it 5/5 stars.

[⋆˚࿔kiki˚⋆ {barely active}]

Personally, I like unique names, because especially in books based in a different world I feel like it helps a lot to emphasize the differences.
If the names are hard to pronounce I'm usually okay with it. I just get slightly annoyed when I find out much later that I've been pronouncing it wrong the whole time 😂

[⋆ b r e z ! ⋆]

Unique names are fun, when i can pronounce them lol

[Lisa]

Unique names are ok but I prefer, if possible, a pronunciation guide for, say, Gaelic or European names, or even other races,genders, or ethnic groups. .