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How Do You Think Of Character Names?
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Emily V, Head Mod
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Jan 28, 2012 09:34AM
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I tend to think of a name and then see if I personally know anyone who shares the name. If that person has similar characteristics to the character in the book then it makes it a bit easier to write.Ultimately the longer the story goes on the less I actually think about the real person but it helps when in the early stages.
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I try to let the personality of my character determine the name. I also quite like using old English words that relate to my character if it makes sense to do so.
I look at words then scramble then to make a unique name. In a book I'm writing called Souls, I have a charrie named Kunai. She is named after a Chinese farming tool that was adopted by ninjas as a throwing knife. Cool huh? In another of my books, I have a character named Nitika. It means Angel in another language and it just happens that she is an angel. So it always seems to differ for me. But mostly I like a story behind the name.
Christi wrote: "I look at words then scramble then to make a unique name. In a book I'm writing called Souls, I have a charrie named Kunai. She is named after a Chinese farming tool that was adopted by ninjas as..."Borrowing from other languages is quite useful. I do like the idea of name scrabble though.
I've used baby names website too, particularly as I like character names to have meanings that go with their characteristics But also I've used names I like from people I've known
I actually need to name a minor character now who's the twin sister of a main character named Anya, but am stuck... Any ideas? :)
Also Anya was originally 'Maia... Any thoughts on that as I'm not 100% on that either...
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Emily wrote: "I love names with nice meanings but I've found the better the meaning the worse the name"You're right about that - I've struggled to always do the meaning thing - it's usually things like:
beautiful creature - Gertrude
heroic warrior - Bob
I can't see people going crazy for handsome, heroic Bob (even when I type it I can only hear the Blackadder 'Bob' in my head!)
Melanie wrote: "Emily wrote: "I love names with nice meanings but I've found the better the meaning the worse the name"You're right about that - I've struggled to always do the meaning thing - it's usually thing..."
Ah but there could be a very heroic Robert out there. Or Roberto.
For contemporary human characters, I write the first name that comes to mind to see if it sticks. Sometimes a character doesn't fit the name. I have no idea why. Intuition is funny that way.For non-humans or fantasy/sf humans I just try to make sure it's pronounceable. I read a tip somewhere that for naming fantasy characters a trick is to take a regular english word that is not typically used as a name, then change the spelling. "Hammer" becomes "Hamyr" or "cup" becomes "Khup" or "idea" becomes "Aydeah." I don't remember the theory behind the tip, though.
@ JR my other half is a robert so would go for that :)
I look forward to hearing about Rob the mighty warrior then :)
So..if that's how people come up with character names, any thoughts on ones you like/ don't like?Would twilight be as popular if Brenda and Keith were the leads? Do you hate unpronounceable names?
Mod
I spend a lot of time on names. I go here http://www.20000-names.com/ and spend forever finding a name that I like and has a meaning that describes a character. For example, my current book has a main character that is thrown into a different time/place and her name (Chiyo) means a thousand generations in Japanese. Another character stalks the shadows and his name, Senka, means shadow in Serbian. It's time consuming, but I wouldn't be happy with the names if there wasn't a layer of meaning to them. Like Emily though, I like them to be pronounceable and when dealing with multicultural names it can be hard.
Sadie wrote: "I spend a lot of time on names. I go here http://www.20000-names.com/ and spend forever finding a name that I like and has a meaning that describes a character. For example, my current book has a m..."Sounds like it's well worth the effort - both Senka and Chiyo are good names AND pronounceable...anything that has more than three syllables and uses weird letters is usually guaranteed to drive me mad.
I've seen treads on Hunger Games where people hated the names - I didn't have issues with any of them - although wouldn't want to be called Katniss myself :)
None of my names are pronounceable...I can pronounce them so I don't think about others. Kunai (mentioned above) is really pronounced Koo-nye (like in eye) but I say it Koo-neigh. Weird I know. Then I have Xia-Xia in another book. I say it Sasha or something close to that. It really sounds like a Z. Zsha-Zsha. Like that. I do not like that. Anywho, back to my point. It may seem unpronounceable but that's what pronouncing guides come in.
Christi(Gingerpaw of Sunclan) wrote: "None of my names are pronounceable...I can pronounce them so I don't think about others. Kunai (mentioned above) is really pronounced Koo-nye (like in eye) but I say it Koo-neigh. Weird I know. ..."I had a similar experience with Chiyo. I pronounce it Chee-yoh (long e). However, part of my editing regime is the let the computer read the text to me so that I can hear errors. (Thats a great tip by the way.) The computer pronounced it ChI-yo (long i). It drove me crazy at first and then I just had to laugh.
Christi(Gingerpaw of Sunclan) wrote: "None of my names are pronounceable...I can pronounce them so I don't think about others. Kunai (mentioned above) is really pronounced Koo-nye (like in eye) but I say it Koo-neigh. Weird I know. ..."Short names I don't mind so much, because I give it my own pronunciation and so I'm happy with it (have come across Xia-Xia, z-z before) It's the ones that are about five syllables or more long and I have to stop in the flow of the book to work out how to say are the ones that bug me - as usually, once I've spent the time working it out, it doesn't stick easily and I end up pausing every time I see it.
Mod
I borrowed a lot of my names from Greek meanings. Such as Stiros. Which is supposed to mean barren, infertile, etc. which worked out perfectly for the name of a dead planet in my book.
I don't actually spend a lot of time on picking out names for my characters when I write... I'd say the main character takes 15 minutes tops if I'm thinking about it (i.e. researching- where I just look for something that sounds non-stupid) or sometimes it just comes in my head. I put very little effort in making meaning because honestly I don't see that as too big of a deal.
Hayley wrote: "I don't actually spend a lot of time on picking out names for my characters when I write... I'd say the main character takes 15 minutes tops if I'm thinking about it (i.e. researching- where I just..."I like that....picking a 'non-stupid' name, that could be a top tip :)
Emily wrote: "I skip over names I can't pronounce like Ivashkov (Adrian Ivashkov) and someone asked me who my favorite VA character was and I couldn't say it, I was trying to for about 5 minutes until I gave up ..."I learned how to say his name!! I(like in it)-vash-cof. My mom knew how to say it, all kov things in Russia are like that. Made me feel tupid. XD
A little off topic, but I think a valid point. When I was reading The Brothers Karamazov people would see me with this huge book and ask "hey what 'cha reading?" and I couldn't answer. (Not to mention how to pronounce Fyodor Dostoyevsky). It was embarrassing. Luckily I worked with a guy from Russia who repeatedly corrected me until I could say it at least close to correctly. Sometimes it's not a matter of choosing a hard to pronounce name. Sometimes its just a difficult translation.
Mod
It's strange he would have a russion surname since he's not russian unless Richelle Mead isn't telling us something
Emily wrote: "Christi(Gingerpaw of Sunclan) wrote: "Emily wrote: "I skip over names I can't pronounce like Ivashkov (Adrian Ivashkov) and someone asked me who my favorite VA character was and I couldn't say it,..."Almost all her characters are Russian or from Europe, so I wouldn't be surprised.
I dig through a page of baby names until I come up with one! I found two of my characters surnames in a Wikipedia list of serial killers: Montgomery and Glaze. Instantly, they became Victorian dandies with odd speech patterns and impeccable clothing!
I find a friend on Facebook, and look at their friends list until I find a name I like. I never spend more than a minute on this, unless their profile photo is particularly attractive...In theory I go back and change the names later, but I almost never actually do this. Agonising over things like names can be a dreadful obstacle to actually getting any writing done. If I was writing a historical piece I might be a bit more methodical about researching names, but I don't worry too much about making a name match a personality. We're named before we even have personalities, and the other Andrews I know are totally different to me, for example.
Most of my story ideas come to me when i'm doing something boring which you don't really use your brain for (like puzzles or doing the dishes). I just start mumbling lines of dialogue out loud, and the 'he/she said' after it. The character's names usually come to me when i'm doing that. I had trouble naming one of my characters a couple of weeks ago. He's not a main character, but he's pretty important to my story. All the names i found didn't seem to fit. Eventually, i decided to call him Alecxander, Alec for short. I might still change it if i find something that fits him better.
I've actually used many names from family and old friends from back home - mixed up with first and last names switched, so it's not a real name. We have some colorful names back there, and I have no shortage of sources...
I've been known to use town names for my characters. I didn't even realise it at first. I'm not sure if that means anything about the characteristics of the persona though.
Town names...huh..hadn't thought of that...great idea, and duly tucked away :)
Ashley wrote: "D wrote: "I've been known to use town names for my characters. I didn't even realise it at first. I'm not sure if that means anything about the characteristics of the persona though."I totally di..."
Haha. Now, see I'm thinking Wasaga Beach might make for a great character name.
I'm also from Ontario, Canada. :D
Lucinda wrote: "Dear Everyone,When i am thinking of a name for a character i cannot help but turn to the thesaurus and have a look at words and their meanings, as i aim for the name to have a particualr meaning t..."
Baby names too!
First, if I can tie the name to the character in some way I'll do that. I named my ornithologist in Forest Fires Drake Carver. My demonstration cook/cake decorator is named Piper Frost. My WIP heroine, a musician, is named Shasta Kovich. If I can't tie the name to the character I'll use my baby name book, read movie trailers, keep my eyes open for anything that might hit me. It isn't easy.
I use a variety of methods, including baby naming sites that I can narrow down to country of origin. Most recently, I began referencing government census records, which can be an excellent source of unusual names.
Usually I will write a list of names and test it out on my vision of the character. For the antagonist of the book, I think of someone in my past that irritated me. That way it is easy to portray him as a villain. http://catherinebennett.org
@Catherine, I will admit that I have named baddies after "certain" people as well ;)
Sometimes I just pull names out of thin air if the a character comes up that I wasn't expecting. For major characters though I name them after constellations, names of pets I really loved, names from Norse mythology, names from past stories I have scraped because they weren't going anywhere, medieval names and altered named from characters from other stories. Though admittedly I have this thing where I have to have a character with a name from a Shakespearean play in every story I write. I just love all of the names Shakespeare has in his plays.
You sound just like me, Carolyn, whenever I am at a loss for character names, I look to Shakespeare and the old Epics and poems. I especially love naming horses after characters from Homer or mythology.
Hm. Depends on what era I'm writing about (Historical fiction). If the American Civil War, for example, I have lists of names from cemeteries of that era. Byron, for example, was popular during that era, as were old-fashioned biblical names like Asa.
Ancient Egypt on the other hand - no Georges or Bills or Suzies...
Ancient Egypt on the other hand - no Georges or Bills or Suzies...
Diana wrote: "Hm. Depends on what era I'm writing about (Historical fiction). If the American Civil War, for example, I have lists of names from cemeteries of that era. Byron, for example, was popular during ..." Charles Dickens was famous for gathering names for his characters from cemeteries. It's actually a very good idea, especially when writing an historical book.
Like a lot of other people, I use baby name websites and I also use websites with list of names that are uniquely ethnic to get ethnic names such as Ahmad or Rasul.But when I'm writing scifi, I go hog wild with a combination of my imagination and my love for fun;
Sarah Talmaiz, Paul Swiftcar, and brothers Racer and Bayuspli Tyer on the spaceship, The Lugging Nut.
Stan wrote: "Like a lot of other people, I use baby name websites and I also use websites with list of names that are uniquely ethnic to get ethnic names such as Ahmad or Rasul.But when I'm writing scifi, I go..."
20,000 names.com is a great website. It has more names than I have found on any baby name website, and you can look up names by country, time period, or even animal and weapon names (if you write old epic style stories ;)
Emily wrote: "Sounds easy right? Well it is anything but that, how do you do it?"I actually try to name 2 or 3 characters in every book after a fan or someone I've met at a book signing. People get REALLY excited when they hear that there's a chance that they'll be in a book. I tell them upfront that they might be a good guy or a bad guy, a main character or just someone who is in one scene, but I do try and take names from people I know.
One of my fans said, "If you could make me a Rosencranz and Guildenstern type character and kill me off, that would be awesome." That made me laugh a lot.
I am so creative when it comes to not only coming up with names but creating them as well. The characters in my next book just sort of popped into my head and blended in nicely. I myself have come up with over two hundred names from doing nfl drafts on my madden games throughout the years so picking a good name is fairly easy for me.
