For an important character, I tend to either try and find a name with a meaning that represents them in some way, or just pick a nice name which I think fits them. For minor characters, I might use a generator or pick a name of a historical figure. What I really struggle with though is naming places. I read all these made up place names in other books and it seems right, but I'm sure mine sound stupid most of the time. I don't like taking real place names either, as that just doesn't seem right to do, especially if you're pretending this is some fantasy land that happens to have the same name as a real town or city, unless its very obscure.
It really depends on what genre I'm writing. If it's fantasy I'll either look up a couple name generators, come up with something crazy, or research what kind of names people had in the past, Norse, Saxon, Celtic, etc... If it's not fantasy, I'll look up common surnames from different cultures and mix and match till i find one fitting for my character based on where he/she's from.
For myself, it really depends on the project that I am working on. For example, I am working on a piece about Great Britain now, and am pulling names from websites like http://www.babynameguide.com. That or Seventh Sanctum works well.
I got my favorite name from a friend who was writing Clone Wars fanfiction, and I borrowed his last name from a character in Supernatural. Cesario Rowan Novak. I love it so much!
I'm always on the lookout for names. If I run across an interesting one as I'm going about my day I'll add it to my master list of potential names. Then when I need to name something or someone I'll comb through the list. When the characters are based on real people I use an analog of their name. For instance I have a group of characters loosely based on the guys I supervised at my last job and one guy had a last name for a first name - Wilson - so his character got a similar last name for a first name: Hudson. Which works on another level because we always used to tease Wilson with Castaway references, so the other guys in my story always tease Hudson with Aliens references. For some reason I'm really partial to street names, especially for place names. There's a street called North Edge which always sounded to me like some cold, windswept cliff, so that's what I named my isolated coastal region. Furmint became a street that only exists sometimes because I got lost one day and kept coming back to Furmint, which sounded like such a made-up name that I had to steal it to use as a made-up name. Kreth, a street that had a bunch of century plants on it, became the name of a sub-group of people from an ancient lineage because it fit with the sound of the names I had for the people of that lineage who also happen to revere a plant that's similar to a century plant. Personally I'm not big on using baby name sites or name generators because they all start to look the same to me after a while. I prefer to let a name "in the wild" jump out at me and ask to be used, even if I don't know how at the time.
I usually choose my names based on what I want to write in the book. For example, I will choose a characters name based on a quote that I eventually want to write into the story, and choose the perfect name to make that quote sing. Like, I would think of the moment when Tom Hanks is screaming Wilson, and then pick a name perfect for that scene, and then use it throughout the story based on this choice. If I have a character die early, but be meaningful to the rest of the story, then I pick a name that I feel can be reminisced about without being too clunky, such as a one syllable name, or one that can be easily given a nickname, to shorthand-express a characters emotional connection to the person. I've found using a nickname in scenes of grief can pump it up a lot. Although, I do write comedy science fiction, and most of my characters names are mashed up words that mean something about that character, a character trait, or what they are a satire of. If I have an alien who is a sexual deviant, I find the most complex and obscure word for sexual deviation, take out some vowels, add a few apostrophes, and see what I end up with.
I wing it until I find something that sounds like it fits the character's personality. If it's a simple minded or not all that intelligent character... Frank/Hank/Jimothy so on. (I apologize if anyone has these names and is offended) If the character is an elf or dwarf or something like that, I google that race's naming rules. Usually there's something random to be found. Although, sometimes I still stick to naming based on traits. A dainty Elf know-it-all would be an Alexandertinious (Super long pointless name) Then the character will just call them Alex. Also, if you have an asshole character, you can get away with a lot of humor doing that. (Introducing annoying friend to another character) "My name is Graham Von Turtelsnischke the 3rd of the blood, and 6th of the cross." MC- "So yeah... this is Turtle. Turtle is kind-of a tool, but you get used to it."
I like your thinking amerrigan. Screaming "Matt" just wouldn't be as effective. As for using a nickname in scenes of grief, well, I might just have to steal that idea from you. Hudson & crew die at the beginning of my story, so the only glimpses of them outside the scene where they all die are the main character reminiscing about them as he processes his grief.
I put a lot of thought into names for my characters. I research what their meanings. My MC's name meaning usually has to do with the resolution or it opposes the conflict of the story. The other character's match their personalities. It's fun and aggravating, too.
Names of the three MCs in the story I'm working on... Rosemarie, Mabel, and Adeline... supporting characters thus far, Gael, Claire, Lazare, and Valeri. Thought of the names in less time than it took to write this post. Names should be common and unpretentious, and definitely not be an extension of the character's personality. That's what I hate about Charles Dickens and JK Rowling... such stupid, silly names they chose, and that telegraph to the reader what those characters are all about.
Whatever you do, don't got the Hunger Games approach to character names. Great books, but worse names ever.
I hope this doesn't sound too strange but for me the name always come to me. I'll switch it out to try different names, but there's always (so far) only one name that's their name. I did write one story where I tried to give everyone a symbolic name though.
For fantasy books I will honestly take random letters and form a name. If it looks like it can be pronounced with out extended effort, it becomes a name. Example: Rael. See that sounds like the name of some supernatural creature. Most likely an antagonist. I suppose for books based in modern times; I would look up names but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
When picking out names, I usually google the top 50 or top 100 girl and boy names for the year in which my character was born. Once I have the list, I can just pick and choose whatever names come to me. Surnames, I'll admit, are a bit more difficult. For surnames, I consider their geographical location and go from there; someone whose family has been in PA a long time might have a Germanic name whereas someone whose family is from MN might have a Scandinavian name.
Sometimes I name characters after people I know or search for popular baby names. For main characters I have a mess around with translations of words I would use to describe them. For a comic book project I'm working on, I used Emay Reiziger. She is from a long line of adventurer-types. Emay is from M.A, my daughter's initials and Reiziger is Dutch for traveller.
It all depends. Sometimes I take the prefix of a real name and the suffix of another real name. Sometimes I use straight real names and real last names. Sometimes I use first names as last names and so on. I usually use http://www.babynames.com/ and http://surnames.behindthename.com/. I've heard people tell me that they use a telephone book to help them. I would but I can't seem to get a free telephone book in my area. I tried getting one online (plus a telephone book is great to have around, just in case - I know we have smartphones and computers). There's a great article I have saved. It's from K.M Weiland's blog. She also has a podcast too that I haven't listened to in a while called Authors Helping Writers Become Authors. The Creative Penn with Joanna Penn is another good podcast, by the way. Here's the K.M Weiland blog article about character naming before I forget https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/naming-characters/. I hope this article helps you and others. She talks about using word scramblers where you put a list of names into a search engine and it spouts back a list of original names.
I also use several of those sites! Another that has helped me quite a bit is http://www.20000-names.com/, especially when I know a character's ethnicity but not much about the naming traditions of their home country/ies.
I go to websites like www.babynames.com and will usually choose a name that has a meaning that fits my character or the trial they're experiencing. I'll search a name by meaning, ie: "strength," "courage," "faithful," etc. or I do some research on previous literary characters that someone might attribute the name to. For example, I wouldn't name someone, or something, Sherlock unless his behavior or some attribute is similar to the infamous Sherlock Holmes.
Everywhere. People I went to school with. I used to whip out the yearbook and flip through to find names that I liked. Some are names I'd like to name my future children. At my job I look through client's cases and every so often I'll see a name that I'd like and jot it down. Many names just come to me out of the blue. I'm not the biggest fan of super common names but once in a while a "Mary" will come up because it fits the character I have in mind. Even if I think the name is ugly sounding. Not everyone has a name that I like.
I used to use Seventh Sanctum a lot! I'd consider using it again, but only if the genre fit (say, if I was writing a children's book or a fantasy book, wherein names like 'Lilia Moon Raven' wouldn't seem strange). Generally, I find name generators with really uncommon names to be a bit too 'fan fiction', so unless I'm going for that kind of style, or there are other options in the generator, I come up with the names myself. I always plan the name last though - I want to set out motives, appearance, personality, etc. first, and then the name comes to me. Is the character male or female? Where are they from? Is there a certain name that could be associated with the character's personality? I used to always want something fat-fetched and unique but I've learnt that common names can be equally effective.
Same here. It just comes to me as I'm writing. Depending on the story the names fit with the situation.
I kinda just put random letters together and see what looks good. That's how I named my cat. And one of the characters I have a script for. Kyrian.
The context of my characters, both in my writing and in forum roleplays, does depend a lot on what is going on around them and I factor in their backgrounds a lot. As someone with a moderate understanding of Japanese, when I use Asian themes I develop their backstory and look up kanji to do with the key themes. For example, my sea-dwelling storm dragon is called Kairan Seiryuu, which when put surname first, as Japanese names tend to be, the character order comes out as 'blue dragon sea storm'.