Naming characters

So, how exactly do you kids come up with names for your characters? This is sort of a two-parter, for mainstream names and fantasy names

I sometimes have a baby name book handy (right now it's hidden because the mother-in-law got all excited). I feel like naming characters sort of is like naming a child - you want your cast to have names that fit them, or as in the case of M.F. from Coyote Blue, a reason that the name is less-than-desirable (whether mom and dad named him/her inappropriately or the character at least thinks they did). Other times I just hear a name I like and it ends up in a story. I have a list of those, and when a name invokes an image, resonates with a character, there it is.

Then again, if the name of the lead male is something like "Blake Dakota", I'll be looking up from the book description to see if I'm in the romance section (or maybe men's adventure).

Once you've got a first name, you probably need a last name, which means you also want the names to "flow" with one another, and again I'm thinking of new parents trying out different combinations of names and nicknames. I can debate with myself for days over whether or not a name sounds right. That's where I stick in a placeholder so I can at least get on with the story while pondering...

Then, for non-contemporary, most likely not-on-Earth settings, how do you create fantasy names? I've read some authors who are great at creating unusual names, and others whose strung-together syllables sound like the noise you make when clearing your throat (no offense to HP Lovecraft, who says that's pretty much how you pronounce Cthulhu). I like to think my strung-together syllables are better than that, but I thought it might be an interesting question.

Thoughts?
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Well, I guess you left me with some feathers in my hand.

They name themselves most of the time. However, for the newest project, I chose a name that belonged to a friend from high school. I've always wanted to see it on paper.
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. . .once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
(The Velveteen Rabbit)

I look for names and meanings in baby name websites online or in old dictionaries. I like to have the names of my characters fit with their discriptions or have their names fit for some, i shudder to say, symbolism.
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I feel the same way about disco as I do about herpes. -HST

They have to have the right name for what I need them to do. Sometimes both the full name and the diminutive have to work, as well as the first and last name. I like people to feel intimate, friendly, toward my characters, so I'll seldom refer to them by their last names unless they are a bad guy or a cop.

I use baby-name books, baby-naming websites, and phonebooks for last names. (There are now ethnic baby name sites too, so if you have a Greek or Italian character you can find an authentic name.)


As for fantasy names, I think the easier it is for the eye to recognize and the mind to pronounce, the better. Celtic spellings, accent marks, or weird combinations of consonants will actually stop me from reading a book. After all, if it's a main character, then I'm going to have to spend a whole book skipping over their name. Also, unconventional spellings of normal things, just to be unconventional, well, I find it irritating, but that may just be me. (Vampyre, faerie, phuque)Think of memorable imagery and nomenclature: Freman, the spice, Arrakis, Sand Worms, even Beni Jessarett -- pretty simple pronounciations -- And I still remember the name Rachaverak, the liason Overlord from Childhood's End, and I haven't read that book in over thirty years. Lovecraft's Old Ones, his ancient places -- well, let's face it, they are hard to discuss with others, aren't they? You sort of open yourself up to be corrected by a linguistic ubernerd.

It's also a good idea not to have main characters whose names start with the same letter, or whose names look a lot alike. I screwed up on that account in Fluke, naming characters Clay and Claire who had a lot of scenes together. While this didn't tank the book, it probably disturbed the flow of some scenes because people had to look back to see who did what. There was also a Cliff in the book. For a relatively short book, that's too damn many short CL characters.

Whether you want to indulge Ian Fleming-like names, well, that's your call. While Pussy Galore, Honeychile Rider, and Agent Strangeways are certainly memorable, and it's kind of fun naming characters in that way (Austin Powers style), it's going to be tough to get past the name for most readers.

Have I told you about naming Adeline Eats, one of the Crow Indian characters from Coyote Blue? Well, Eats is certainly a credible name for a Crow. Her given name, or more likely her great grandfather's name, might have been, Eats the Liver (Buffalo), so the BIA would have shortened it to EATS and made it a surname for the whole family. (I knew a guy named Harold Stops, but his full name was Stops at Pretty Places.) Anyway, I was in the general store one day in Crow Agency, Montana, and the employee phone list for the store employees was taped to the cigarette rack above the phone. One of the names on it was Adeline Bad Beaver. I'm not kidding.

Could I? Should I? In the end, I thought the larger audience would think that I was making fun of Indian people's names, and any protest that "no, that's really the truth" doesn't fly in those instances, so my general store lady became Adeline Eats. One can't help but wonder if a character named Bad Beaver might not have had a different attitude toward life?

Last edited by chris on Thu Sep 02, 2004 2:01 pm; edited 1 time in total

Chris, what's phuque? I go to baby names.com all the time. I have more trouble coming up with last names for the characters. I have even tried to make up towns name by spelling my name backwards. Ahsatan is not a good name for town.
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If you can't find a friend make one.

At my husband's suggestion, I rearranged the letters of the very real town I'm setting my story in--Galena--to Angela.

I think I'll do that kind of thing from now on when it comes to towns.
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. . .once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
(The Velveteen Rabbit)

Names

I'm writing a book right now and the main lady's name kept changing with every chapter. I figured eventually, as I got to know her, a name would stick. Yesterday, a woman called the bookstore and I took her name for the order and it was perfect. I asked her to spell it and immediately hijacked it for my own nefarious purposes. The character's last name is based on the last name of another customer who is an avid reader and I figured it would be good luck to use it, plus combined they sound totally cool.

Fairydust wrote:

Chris, what's phuque? I go to baby names.com all the time. I have more trouble coming up with last names for the characters. I have even tried to make up towns name by spelling my name backwards. Ahsatan is not a good name for town.

PH =F
U = U
QUE = CK

Real name here: Bich. It is Vietnamese. I used to know a guy (Long Ngyuen) whose sister was named Bich. I bet she started going by her middle name.

Real Name (not mine)!

Cleotis Faggat
Really!
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Book: A garden carried in a pocket. Arabian Proverb

Names

I sometimes get them from the obituaries. I find my characters tend to name themselves, although I sometimes get stuck on a letter. Recently I ended up withfour characters whose names started in 'A' -- but was able to use that to be more creative about a couple of the characters who then renamed themselves. Now if they would only help me on the plot.

I had a blast naming characters in my novel. The main character, Lenny Kapowski, just jumped out at me. Lenny fit the character as first name. (I also liked it from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men) I was watching an old Batman tv show and the screen exploded with a "KAPOW!" right as I was looking up from my writing notes. I added the "ski" and made him Polish just so I could have him tell some great self-deprecating Polish jokes, just like all my Polish friends do.

Lenny's best friend, Norm Grubnik: I was working midnights in a factory and on my lunch break I warmed up a chicken sandwich from Burger King. The logo design on the bag wrapped around the corner, so all I saw was Burg Kin. I reversed the letters and put them together.

The Rambling Hills Resident Council members, who try to run Lenny out of their neighborhood, were named Monroe Purdum, Webster Courtland, Jasper Morrison, and Harrison Armstrong. Those are all intersections near my house.

I named other characters just for traits they had. Susie Ten-Inch, Truck, Pinky, and Betty Crash from the lesbian punk rock band, Rugmuncher. Susie wore a neon pink strap-on dildo on stage. Pinky had a pink mohawk, Betty Crash was a drummer, and Truck was giant gorilla-like woman. Creepy Pete was, well... creepy. Gonorrhea Randy had gonorrhea. See a pattern? LOL.

In the novel I'm working on now one of the main characters is retarded and I really wrestled with his name in the planning stages. I wanted to make sure that it was something that couldn't be cutesied up by adding a y or an ie. I went with Ethan. That name sort of has to stand as it is.
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"We went together like Kennedys and head wounds."--Lenny Kapowski

chris wrote:

PH =F U = U QUE = CK

There's a German last name, Fux. He's a famous German music theorist we had to study when I did my music degree. We all walked around calling him "Fooks" until some Latvian professor said, "Fooks? Whose is Fooks?" and set us straight on the pronunciation.

sioux city, where i grew up, has a somewhat sizeable vietnamese population. Enter high school P.E. with the Ho family. Sisters Phuc and Dat Tan. aaah. yep. Names.

Knew a guy named Bert Kotzic. (something like that) I believe he was polish. Anyway, in his region, kotzic means hunting knife. Cool! In an adjacent dialect, kotzic means vomit.

Uh-huh.
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"Methaphors are not to be trifled with."

I like obscure names, but unfortunately, they get confusing fairly quickly, so I try to keep it to one or two per storyline. I think the weirdest name I have in the manuscript I just handed over to the Lauren-meister was Athea - after a friend's daughter, but the rest are John and Mac and Jason, etc.

I don't like books where I can't pronounce people's names. A few, sure, but every other one? Drives me nuts.

Last edited by Hillary on Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:46 pm; edited 1 time in total