Character naming

[Stereocrisis]

How do you come up with names for your characters? Is it random? Or is it thought out?

I'm having this trouble with writer's block, and it happens when I have to come up with a name for my character. It makes me lose all concentration, and I end up loosing interest in the story I'm trying to create.

So, what do you guys do? Do you just wing it? Because I've tried, and I always think the name I'm using sounds cheesy.

I thought to get around his problem I could just use the internet for a name generator. This also has the same problem for me. I get to be unhappy with the names, and it kills my whole motivation to keep the story moving.

I thought of another way, but I have not tried it yet. But I'm already predicting bad news, because it would also take up too much time, and end my desire to keep the story alive. I was thinking of actually looking up name meanings, and seeing which ones fit into my characters personalities.

Your thoughts? How do you do it?

And don't say for me to just type the story and go back later, because that would take way too much time to go back and insert a name every other line. I want this problem fixed for me, that way I don't have to do that.

[ZeeAk]

Generally, I name them after the friend that I think is most relevant to that character. That said, I only even use first names in my stories, and I'm not entirely sure why that is. Probably because they all tend to be written between friends, or at least acquaintances, and unless it's part of a personal joke, no-one greets a friend with, "Oh, hey, John Smith!"

It comes down to personal preference, though. I know a writer friend of mine spends a lot of her time thinking of names - 'instead of thinking up names of future children, I name future characters,' she tells me.

[LucasJC]

Maybe you've already tried this, but this technique always works for me. Picture what you want your character to look like in your head, then name him/her, or, you could name it after a friend and change the description of the character to fit your friend. It also works with teachers, inspirations and people you hate.

[Version2]

At 6/10/11 09:54 PM, Stereocrisis wrote:

And don't say for me to just type the story and go back later, because that would take way too much time to go back and insert a name every other line. I want this problem fixed for me, that way I don't have to do that.

Most word processors have a Find and Replace tool, it really doesn't take that long.

I pretty much start off with place holder names, something I pick in five minutes so I can just get on with the story itself. Most of the time those names stick, sometimes they don't. If I think of something better I just use Find and Replace. It can get tricky with nicknames occasionally, but that gets ironed out when I do my rewrites.

[DeftAndEvil]

At 6/10/11 09:54 PM, Stereocrisis wrote:
I thought of another way, but I have not tried it yet. But I'm already predicting bad news, because it would also take up too much time, and end my desire to keep the story alive. I was thinking of actually looking up name meanings, and seeing which ones fit into my characters personalities.

Yeah don't do that. Looking up names probably won't work out unless you are writing fantasy as the names are usually dumb and don't fit. I don't like naming characters, especially the protagonist. I find that it makes the plot/conflict a bit stronger and the forefront if not a bit forgettable. Everyone likes memorable characters, I suppose.

Try to make your character name original but not far-out. Add some ethnicity to it. If your character reminds you of your buddy Johnny, but you think John is too common a name, look it up in other languages (Jan, Johann, Javier, Juan [try translate.google]). They are a relatively uncommon but somewhat believable. Finally, try adding nick names. They add a bit of personality (Johnny "Two-Shakes", John "Mad" Madison, Johann "Old Man" Johnson)

[Deathcon7]

I've heard authors say that they keep a backlog of names that they like. Or they create a very bare-bones character and they have a database they put them in. Then, when they need them, they yank them out. Sometimes placing too much importance on a name places to large a strain on you to fit that name. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet..." If the character shines, in the end, it won't matter. Who knows, maybe once you get to know your character better, you'll find a name that suits him or her.

Some writers have formulas too that allow them to build names based off of other names. For example, for The Wheel of Time, Brandon Sanderson used a formula to turn peoples' names into in-world character names. The formula he used varied depending on the in-world culture the character was from.

Also, some names just have inherent meaning. For example, any of the following and its variants: Jesus, the 12 apostles, Mary; proper nouns; cliched names, such as popular characters from other stories: Neo, Frodo, Kvothe; and names like Jezebelle which falls between proper noun and adjective.

[decoyultimatum]

its a bit of both for me its how i made this username nobody anywhere has used it except me

[Nimble]

well,it isnt that hard character naming for me,because i use aliases to refer to my friends instead of their actual names so only i know who im talking about,unless the person who im talking to is sharp.

[Stereocrisis]

At 6/11/11 12:46 AM, NimblekidX wrote: well,it isnt that hard character naming for me,because i use aliases to refer to my friends instead of their actual names so only i know who im talking about,unless the person who im talking to is sharp.

Everybody tends to take something from there personal lives and put it into their writings. I take bits and pieces of the personalities from people I know as well. But it's just difficult for me to come up with names. Unless it's in a song, and not a story. In a song, I can come up with good names for fictional people, who are usually a mixed bag of different people rolled into one.

For example, I have a song named Autumn, that doubles as my favorite season, and the name of a girl, but also has some qualities associated with real life ex girlfriends, or even my family and friends. Same with another song I have titled Emily. Emily's traits could be that of a numberof ex girlfriends, or friends and family. I often like the idea of also inerting lots of double meanings. Using colors is a greatway to do this. You could have a girl named Amber, or Violet.

But thank you to everyone who responded, I'll try to practice these ideas.

[RamenNoodlez13]

well, often when im writing and i find the need of a character name i often try to think of people that has an almost alike personality of the character

[BluGil]

It's a name its not that important.

You just pick something that fits the character. its simple. theres a lot of names! He's intelligent but a little socially awkward? Alden. Hes a supercool jock? Dick. Owns a landscaping business? Carloz Ramirez. In the italian mafia? Alfredo Mastacolli.

Shit's easy.

[DeftAndEvil]

At 6/11/11 01:44 AM, BluGil wrote: It's a name its not that important.

You just pick something that fits the character. its simple. theres a lot of names! He's intelligent but a little socially awkward? Alden. Hes a supercool jock? Dick. Owns a landscaping business? Carloz Ramirez. In the italian mafia? Alfredo Mastacolli.

Shit's easy.

I pick John Everyman and Emily Menstruation for most of my characters. It gets a bit confusing when more than two characters are talking.

[Stereocrisis]

At 6/11/11 01:44 AM, BluGil wrote: It's a name its not that important.

You just pick something that fits the character. its simple. theres a lot of names! He's intelligent but a little socially awkward? Alden. Hes a supercool jock? Dick. Owns a landscaping business? Carloz Ramirez. In the italian mafia? Alfredo Mastacolli.

Shit's easy.

Okay, right here right now. I'll come up with some names. Jimmy Baxter. Henry Conway. Sallie Marx. Freddy Crowe. Alisha Cummings. Malcomn Inmiddle, Lucy Ilove, Ricky Fredsworths. Ethel Merdox, Ted Bundy.... whoa, were did that come from?

[Atypop]

I usually use names of actual people, but names that are common enough so no-one will notice.
Like "John" or "Harry".

[BluesterFrog]

First of all you need to stop bringing yourself down. If you start a story believing that your going to fail. Guess what? You're probably going to fail. When you said "But I'm already predicting bad news" your mind is wallowing in negativity, and no one can start to write and do it successfully if they start out believing their going to encounter problems.
Second, I've had the exact same problems with names, I kept thinking, "oh no! That name sucks!", I don't like using the names of people I know in real-life because i feel too much like i'm fitting a character to a name, instead of doing what should be done: fitting a name to a character, but that might just be a personal thing. Anyway, to find names I usually look on baby name websites. Look at your name, think about the connotation of that name, what do you think of when you hear that name? Describe a person you think of when you hear that name, does it fit your character's personality?

[RWT]

I once named a character Miller Reeves (of 1343 Canterbury Rd.) because I was feeling puckish.

Names should rarely, if ever, carry any hidden meaning. If Stanley Yelnats felt a bit contrived, it was. Strive for verisimilitude in whatever idiom your story is set; unless your character lives in a fantasy world where your name determines strictly who you are, which frankly isn't a bad idea for a story, it doesn't matter that much. If your character ends up saving the world, don't name him Salvador without a good explanation of why his parents named him that. That's the thing: if the audience is meant to get the significance of something, you'd damn well better give a good in-universe reason for it to be there.

That's not to say puns can't be fun. As I'm writing this, I thought of a great name for a Wall Street banker: Jean.
[Mandarin]

[ghostealth]

i got the names of my characters from the celebs....i just change der spellings but i dunno no if it is final

-Madona
-Vieber
-brad pitt
-John "Rambo"
-Ampatuan (he's not a celeb)

-any opinions bout dis? by d way sorry 4 my bad english not a american http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/post/reply /1252911#

[DarklySickly]

I think it all depends on the story. Whether he's a helpless weakling having to man up and take a stand to something. Or a Happy Go lucky moron with a Heart of gold. Or a Strict and stern Having to wise up before his time, type.Etc. It's the Events around your protagonist, and the actions he takes and the decisions he makes that matter.

In Reality a name is something given to us, and it is by this name that we grow up. What type of person we become depends on what happens to use in life. How it all effects us. The only real Power your name has in this, is introduction. First impressions. And what if any type of effect it has on others and how they would react. I understand that names hold some power, Some. To many it's their very Identity. To others it's burden.

I fancy old timely names myself.

[JohnEndel959]

I think it would be fun to name a guy something like Eugene and then have him be surprisingly badass. Just have fun with it, names shouldn't decide the success or failure of the story. Also, if you make a story surrounding the name, it will make it more believable. You don't necessarily have to put the story in the actual work, but the character's name will make more sense to you.

[DirtySyko]

You should not look up the origin or meaning of a name and decide that way. That is boring and tacky. Did your parents wait for you to grow up to be able to match your personality with your name?

If you stress out too much over names your story is going to suffer, names are not as important as you think. Unless your character's name is somehow an important factor in moving your story forward it's not going to matter if you name him Joey or Bill or Dan or Michael.

If anything matters, it's the time period of the story and the ethnicity of the character. If your story takes place in 1930s America, and your character is a white male, stick with classic American male names like John or Bob or Henry. But really, don't sweat the small stuff.

[Stereocrisis]

At 6/15/11 02:59 PM, DirtySyko wrote: You should not look up the origin or meaning of a name and decide that way. That is boring and tacky. Did your parents wait for you to grow up to be able to match your personality with your name?

If you stress out too much over names your story is going to suffer, names are not as important as you think. Unless your character's name is somehow an important factor in moving your story forward it's not going to matter if you name him Joey or Bill or Dan or Michael.

If anything matters, it's the time period of the story and the ethnicity of the character. If your story takes place in 1930s America, and your character is a white male, stick with classic American male names like John or Bob or Henry. But really, don't sweat the small stuff.

I like your way of thinking, so how do you come up with last names? In my style of writing, I like to use both first and last names, instead of just calling a character Tommy, or Jimmy. First names just sound cliche sometimes, I find myself naming way too many characters Tom or Jim.

So, how do you come up with last names?

I just find the naming of a character so important because you are centering your entire story around this person, or people. They should have memorable names, and they should be good ones. I mean, Vagina Whopper could be memorable, but not in any way good.

[Rahmemhotep]

When I come up with character names, I suppose sometimes it's random and other times I think of names that suit the character I'm naming.

Let's say I had a rabbit character that comes from the desert: I'd likely name him in a way that already fit the language or name type-set that his country has, in this case his name is Demjeild. (this would sound like "dame"-"jie" [pronounced like "pie"]-"il"[akin to "ill"]-"de"[similar to "day" except it's a shorter sound, like "deh"])

I would get this name because it would reflect the language that the character supposedly speaks.

[Stereocrisis]

At 6/16/11 05:01 AM, Rahmemhotep wrote: When I come up with character names, I suppose sometimes it's random and other times I think of names that suit the character I'm naming.

Let's say I had a rabbit character that comes from the desert: I'd likely name him in a way that already fit the language or name type-set that his country has, in this case his name is Demjeild. (this would sound like "dame"-"jie" [pronounced like "pie"]-"il"[akin to "ill"]-"de"[similar to "day" except it's a shorter sound, like "deh"])

I would get this name because it would reflect the language that the character supposedly speaks.

Dame pie ill day?

Yes. You're reading my mind.

You nearly ripped me off, actually. lol

MY rabbit book is called Ghurlkayk Sicnite. The Hippity-Hopping Adventures of Ghurlkayk Sicnite to be exact.

pronounced Girl cake sick night. Very VERY close to Dame pie ill day. Spot on. spot on...

[sleeeeep]

Well i say please just avoid cheesy names for tough main characters like Troy. Blake, Drake, or Sage and so forth. For me i don't have much problems coming up with names. But when i was trying to come up with a story set in medieval times, normal names didn't feel right. So i took my cell phone and it has the instant word mode. And when i try to type in a word perpousely spelt wrong or even random letters i get cool sounding names. I dunno it worked for me.

[Bantun]

I put in a filler name if I can't think of a good one.
Most of the names I think of are from typos.
Sometimes, I make typing fails, and viola!
New name!

[EKublai]

Before i go into what I do, I want to say that names are not important, and it is very easy to overthink names and have them become reading obstacles. If you do care about names, then you need to be as sublte as possible so as to not interrupt the story.

I tend to want to have fun and be clever with my characters in the same vein as a writer like Flannery O'Connor does. Often these name are ironic or satirical.

Take Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People", the protagonist is an educated, but very arrogant and ugly girl named Rose, who changes her name to Hulga, possibly one of the ugliest names ever devised. Hulga never gives a reason for changing her name, but it doesn't matter because the action is in keeping with her character, and the resulting name suits the character as well.

I wrote this story about an ugly dentist's assistent who had ovarian cancer and as a result cannot have children. Her name is Virginia Stone. Her first name refers to the fact that she has never had a relationship (perhaps due to the fact that men want their partners to be able to bear children eventually). Her last name Stone, is of course a very mean reference to her womb.

Another example is the dentist herself, whose name is Susan Charrise, but she has a "nick-surname" that she tells everyone to call her. Cherrie. This is motivated because the character Susan Charrise likes to portray herself as sweet (in temperment) like a cherry.

The dentist's patient is young fat boy named Remy Monday. His last name refers to the plot in which Remy has many trips to the dentist and each time you don't quite know what to expect except that something bad is going to happen. So in this case, Remy Monday as a character is a catatyst to the plot and the name is an indentifier that says "Beware".

Lastly, his mother's name is Evelynn Monday. This one's more simplistic as she is a flat character. She's a terrible mother to Remy so I chose Evelynn because I thought it sounded close enough to "evil"

That said. Names are not important.

[Oddity89]

Sometimes I pore over name meanings in baby naming sites, others I just draw a character and go "Yooooooou look like a...hm, Steve. Alright, you're Steve."

I always have to change the names later anyway...like in the fantasy epic I'm working on, I had too many S-names, so I changed "Sarah" to "Aleeah" and "Samik" to "Perry" (the latter was really for the better, I think).

If I have a character without a good name, I'll often just add a letter and special character as the place holder, then use the replace all feature in my word processor to change ~T to the actual name later on.