Should you name a character straight away?

I change my characters names constantly. To get started, I just use the first thing that pops into my head. F.ex, a physicist in the book I am working on is named Einstein. I have a general named Eisenhower, and a painter named Gogh. None of them have names I intend to keep, but they need a name so I can start writing.

 

Charles Dickens got away with this, too.

 

I'm not exactly sure I can fully agree here. I recently put down a story that satirized organized religion, kind of in the same way Vonnegut did in Sirens of Titan, and the main character was named Ralph Sputters.

I'd say that name defines the character to a certain extent, does it not? Do you not get a glimpse into his personality simply just from his name?

 

Personally I like to have my characters named before I start writing about them. The name is rarely anything particularly significant, but I feel like I know the character more if I know their name, just as it is in real life. I can only think of one occaison where I changed a character's name and it was quite uncomfortable to get used to.

 

I feel like the name of a character is one of the biggest indicators of personality in my characters. For example:

My RP character for an urban style RP I do is "Hyeena James." He is a confident, flashy con man who employs charm and wit to manipulate others, but underneath his exterior is an emotionally raw man. Hyeena is a moniker that I think helps to portray him well.

My MC in my novel is "Barker James." (And yes, I didn't realize they had the same surname until this post xD. Wasn't intentional). Barker too is a moniker, because he is a preacher who is seeking redemption from a dark past, full of angst and hurt due to that past. He is tactful and respectful, but also a somewhat cold person. Smiling is not his fortè.

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I spent hours mulling their names. Personally, names give a character life, and they are one of the most important aspects to creating a character.

 

If I have a name for a character, then I use it. If I don't, I use "U" (for "Unnamed", but easier to type) and put a number after it (U1, U2, U3, etc. use them as you need them). If I have the personality of the character already, then I might feel comfortable giving them a name up front. If I have the personality but don't know of a name that suits it yet, then I'll use an "Unnamed name" temporarily. If I don't know of the personality at all, then I'll use an Unnamed name until I think of it, and then maybe I'll start to consider a name, but I don't try to get it right away.

I'll name my characters when I get the inspiration for their names and I've fleshed them out more.

I personally think that the name is what you make it in your writing. How the character acts, how people talk about them, etc.
Eventually, your reader will associate those qualities with the name.

Personally, when I think of Rob, I think of a kind of chubby person with a scraggly beard and mustache (for some reason), but when I was reading about Robb in Game of Thrones, I don't think of him that way, because I associate the name with the character it resembles; not the other way around. (and I don't think this is caused by there being a useless extra "b" at the end of the name...)


So my point is, I don't think the name really matter that much. I disagree when people say "names give a character life". It'd be really easy to give a character life if that was the case. You give the character life by writing them and developing them well.
I also think it's kind of gimmicky to name a character after "something they are/do", like a quality of theirs in another language. It seems kind of forceful. If you want the name to mean something, attach it to a character that means something.

 

For me, the names come when they come, so my piece may have Mr. X, Ms Y and so on until their real names comes to to me. I would suggest that you don't stress about it and just enjoy writing the story, eventually the right name will pop into your mind. Hope this helps!

 

Yeah for me the character name, town/city names have to come first before I start writing. But to be fair to me those are the easiest and fastest to figure out.

 

I agree with this statement, to an extent. I, personally, cannot connect to a character without a name, and so I always give them a name first.

The character isn't made by the name. This is certain.

 

I once could not find a name, that I was happy with, for the main character in a play I was writing, so I called him Charlie with the intention of changing it later, by the time I was half way through the script he had became Charlie to me and I could not see him with any other name.

 

I don't think it matters.

Sometimes I know the name of a character right away. Other times it will take months. I use a placeholder -- usually a unique combination of words or characters -- and then use the search+replace feature in the document once I've decided on a name. One time the placeholder actually became my characters name - calling him anything else now feels weird.

 

I wouldn't pin myself to anything, I would just write and let those charictors whose names jump out have them right away and those that dont get placeholders in the text like mainmalelead and Femaleloveinteresrt to have something to put in place where a name is needed.

other times I'll be hacking together several character traits from friends to combine into a new person and i'll combine the names as well

for example I was writing a guy whose son had a bit of the train spotter in him like my friend Julie and who worked in security like Anne so i mashed the names together and my male security guard is not know in the story as Julian

his sons is called DJ as Anne spins the vinyl as a hobby.

Don't force a name on someone, remember you have until the final rewrite of the final draft before it absolutely needs to be know. let your creations explore themselves and you never know they may TELL you what they are called as you write

 

it's fine, what I do is that if I can't name my characters right away, I give them a placeholder name until i come up with one i.e. John Doe, Jane Doe,Bob, etc

 

I believe my opinion has been shared excessively already: do what feels good. All I have to add is that I just went through the arduous and agonizing process of renaming almost everyone in my book.
Why? Because it's set in a very different world from our own and I realised it was just wrong for my characters to have names from 'Earth-cultures'. That was a few months back and I am still stumbling over the old names in my head. On paper, I use the new names automatically, but when I think about them, the old one keeps appearing. I know this was, without a doubt, the best decision I could make, but it wasn't easy. I guess what I'm trying to say is: thinking hard about their names beforehand could save you all this trouble. But I also know that I couldn't have made this decision back when I created them and I had to write a lot more about these characters to realise they needed different names. I suppose it still comes down to 'whatever feels good'.

good luck!
-Achira

 

Personally, it takes forever for me to name my characters. I'll sit there trying to think or find a really cool and unique name, and often just write, "___________________", whenever a name is needed until I find one. Putting a line also makes it easier to tell where the name is supposed to go when you have one in mind so you don't have to read the whole thing over.

 

I attended a lectured delivered by an published author (can't remember his name) in my first year and he suggested that we decide on a universal placeholder name that can be just numbers (eg 117237) that we use while writing every story whose main character's name we have not decided on from the get go. This way you will both not need to delay your progress by pondering on a name for a long time and not hastily name the character using the placeholder as the placeholder won't be just for the one story but for all future ones.

 

A few people have said that names don't matter; that characters are defined by their words and actions and nothing else. I've contended that Elmer would be a different guy from John and that Mary would be different from Olga. Others, it appears, don't agree.

Here's a reason names matter. When you were a kid, did you treat other kids who had funny or unusual names the same way you treated kids with more common names? Perhaps, after getting to know the kid for a while, you did. But you probably didn't when you first met them. Elmer and Hubert get laughed at more than John and Steve. I saw an article years ago about baby naming that cited statistics saying teachers even grade kids with funny or unusual names lower than kids with common names. If you name your son Hubert, you're making the hill a little steeper for him than it is for Steve. How Hubert reacts to that depends on the individual: He may get beaten down by it, or it may toughen him up. But I don't think you can say it won't affect him at all.

This is the reason I want to have my main characters' names before I start writing. This isn't difficult for me; names tend to pop into my head pretty quickly. I see the snapshot of the character in my head and I almost immediately know his name. The same holds for minor characters who pop up as I need them.

Once I start writing a story and calling a character a particular name, I think of that character by that name from then on. That's his name and it just feels very wrong to change it.

I just can't see using a placeholder name.

 

When i start writing a story i first consolidate the image of my main character in my head. What he/she looks like, what his/her character is like, what his/her expressions and interactions are like. Then i ask myself "what is she/he like?" Is he a Jack, a Karl or a Jason? Is she a Lucy or a Maria? Usually this goes on right as i begin writing so it doesn't take me much time to name main characters. Some people though can't or won't do that so placeholder names are actually helpful.

 

I always try to have a name for the main character(s) and the important secondary characters. However, since I don't plan out my entire book before writing I always find myself stumbling upon new characters I wasn't expecting. I try to have a list of female and male names handy that fit the culture and world they're in so if that ever happens I can pick one out quickly. But there have been times where a character is simply referred to as "H" until I go back and revise it. A name is important for a character, sure, but I don't consider it the end-all, be-all.

 

When their parents named them Hubert or Elmer, they obviously had a reason behind it. If you really need a reason for choosing a name, my approach is to make one that fits your story; treat them as though they are a real person in a real story.

I ask the following questions:
Why does the person have that name?
Who named them?
What is their backstory that explains why they have that name?
Is your story complex enough that it would even matter?

Otherwise, I would just choose something that sounds good. I tend to go with an alliteration that flows well and is easy-to-remember.
For example, Theodore "Ted" Thompson is a main character name I came up with on-the-fly, recently.
Remember your characters can also have nicknames in addition to their given name, just like real people.

 

I'm currently working on a book that involves a lot of characters, and i think i prefer to know their name (or a rough draft name) before i write. The main girl protagonist really frustrated me because i went through so many name changes to get the right fit (aka. Celesita, Cyllinthia, Kiganarra, Kegatsumono, Keitsumah). the male protagonist's name had to be shortened to my exasperation (Badrobonhoed seemed too long so now it's Batos) and as for other names . . . thank goodness i got the hang of name picking after thsoe two...

 

I thought about this when I started writing my novel, my first attempt at novel writing, for which I've written 12000 words so far.
My first thought was that some novels introduce their characters in full, e.g 'Tom Smith looked up at the mountain' etc.
To me, this is too contrived.
In my novel I haven't introduced the characters myself, I've let the other characters introduce them. Only maybe two characters out of maybe seven or eight characters have been named so far. Even then, they are only introduced by their first names. I haven't even thought about their last names.
Let's keep in mind that in many word processors and script editors it's easy to change a character's name at any point, just by highlighting the name and changing it for another.

 

As long as you don't name your characters A, B, C. Gve them placeholder names you can copy/replace reliably.

 

I don't think names are that important - I don't spend months and weeks trying to come up with the right name - but I think they matter somewhat, as people have a preconceived idea of what a person with a particular name will be like, and you can't change that - my idea of what someone named Bertha will be like is completely different than my idea of what someone named Bambi will be like, and unless you're going to play around with that in your story (by having Bertha act like a Bambi as satire), you need to have names that in some way fit your characters. For example, in a story I'm working on, one of the main characters, a preppy high school girl, is named Maxi Marblestein, and it works because it fits her personality, it's unique, and the "stein" at the end indicates she's Jewish (being Jewish is an important part of the story).

 

It really depends on the story and setting. I am currently writing two stories. In one story, the characters "just have names" as in: I can name them whatever I want. Actually, I'm going to do a search-and-replace in the end because one of the names was very poorly recieved by some (test)readers of the first chapters. I can't change the name halfway because they're stuck in my head (and I keep accidentily writing the old name), but there will be no effects of changing it in the end.

The second story is different. It's a place where people have a small coloured floating sphere of light ALWAYS around them (or they're dead). This colour never changes and is their own colour. Here, the naming is usually based of the colours, so there's no way that I can "just change" the names.

So just do whatever. If the names are not really dependant on anything else than whatever you feel sounds nice, name them whenever you want, change them whenever you want and have fun.