How Do You Think Of Character Names?

[Rosanna]

There are so many considerations on this topic for me. For one, I consider the genre. Writing paranormal romance, for the most part, I like my names to sound somewhat fanciful. I also consider setting and what would make sense in that part of the world? Is the character an immortal or someone from a historical period? Are there character traits I can incorporate? It's a fun process!

[Erica]

I write both Fantasy and 'standard' fiction. For the latter I pick names I see and like, and which are not too common. The protagonist in one of my stories is called Tamsyn Moriarty, simply because I like both names (but then my husband complained that he couldn't stop thinking about the Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes).

For Fantasy I make up my own, but I tend to be very picky with the letters I use. For instance, I somehow always dislike any name that starts with a U (apologies to any Ursulas out there), but I think I probably overuse the S.

With regards to pronunciation, I have the slight problem that I live in England and write in English, but I come from the Netherlands, which means that I often think of names that sound better somehow if you pronounce them in Dutch than in English. One of my characters is called Mior, which I would pronounce as Mee-orr, with a strong rolling R. In English I suppose people would pronounce it Mye-or with a silent R.

But then, as long as you're not reading my book out loud to me, I suppose it doesn't really matter. =)

[A.L.]

There are a ton of name generators around (some better than others) and also baby names books and sites are useful, especially for more exotic sounding names.

[[deleted user]]

I just pick and choose. I steal from other books etc. or come up with similar sounding names. E.g. In my short story "Ophelia and Bedelia" the names Ophelia and Bedelia were taken from a novel, and then I needed another exotic name ending in elia that has a meaning along the lines of psychopath. I ended up picking Anastelia

[L.F.]

In my original drafts, sometimes my characters start out with one name but end up with another as their personality develops. Any main character, I believe, should have a name that truly fits their personality. Peripheral characters can have quirkier names, but none should outshine the main character's.

[Tony]

I came across the name "Anayim" in a National Geographic article about dying languages. It's from Tuvalu and is an affectionate name for a baby girl. It means "my little goat". Anyone wants to use it, go for it!

Russian names are hard on my decadent Western eyes. ;-).

Tolstoy in War and Peace has a tendency to name every character, even those who are in the book for one page. If not Russian, then they're Polish with combinations of Sz- Czh- that I can't get my eyes round. I tend to skip over them. It was particularly hard when reading Schindlers List though. Street names in Polish then as well.

[Rosanna]

Alexandra wrote: "There are a ton of name generators around (some better than others) and also baby names books and sites are useful, especially for more exotic sounding names."

I use those resources a lot too.

[Thomas]

In my first two books, I used last names from folks that I grew up with. Then I would either switch the first names with others, or create a new one.

[A.L.]

Another thing I do it take a name I like and mispell it, or add a letter. I have a minor character called Emmae which is just Emma with an extra E.