What is the best way of choosing a protagonist's name?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by MrIntensity, Feb 17, 2017.

  1. MrIntensity

    MrIntensity Member

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    @ChickenFreak Well I had no clue that Jayce is a Greek name, I always assumed the name to be anglo as it is more or less very plain sounding and fits the "feel" of other names like Paul or George. I myself am of Russian decent so my knowledge of anglo names are a bit lacking. Another example would be when I was trying out Slavic names they just were too obvious and made no sense giving the fact that Jayce is essentially a future human descendant, (so far in the future we would be considered ancient history.) So I must give it to @Simpson17866 that it makes sense to alter existing names.

    @texshelters I see that Jayce fits as masculine name but the problem here is the context and I'm struggling because unlike names of pure aliens (an example like Klingons or the Elites of halo.) which are quite easy to just make up based on what culture you allocate them. Humans or human descendants in this case are hard because it must be familiar enough but I don't want anything too exotic, something the readers could process fast.

    @NoGoodNobu I see where you are coming from, however another problem here is that I am trying to establish as much plausibility and realism as I can (story arch wise.) in order to convey it's ultimate meaning more subtly but still in form. I understand that names are important, but here it's going to be quite hard pinpointing something with meaning without completely washing the writing with foreshadowing or destiny-chasing stuff like @Tenderiser pointed out with Bella swan (As the character in question has a very grim fate early in the story that ultimately shapes him as a character, trying to put something like that into the name could, in my opinion, lose the punch of reality).
     
  2. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Well, a fair number of the names that we use today are also ancient. How ancient are you thinking?
     
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  3. MrIntensity

    MrIntensity Member

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    @ChickenFreak Approximately 3526 years from now (Yeah I know that's a bit specific but I'm a huge nerd.)
     
  4. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    That's not all that long ago, especially if you assume that written history continues. I think that you could reasonably take historical human names. For example, if I look up the name Aaron, the discussion refers to the way that it was translated in 200 BC, which makes the name even earlier. Despite the name being ancient, it's the #61 name in popularity. (I assume for boys.)
     
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  5. MrIntensity

    MrIntensity Member

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    @ChickenFreak I see, well then in that case that makes my job somewhat easier. I'll see what names I can come up with but for now I'll stick with Jayce whilst I'm writing. Again thanks for the help as I wasn't sure given the context that certain names would have been appropriate or realistic.
     
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  6. ajaye

    ajaye Senior Member

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    FWIW I took Jayce to be a shortened version of Jason. Jason Bourne, Argonauts... lots to like there.
     
  7. NiallRoach

    NiallRoach Contributor Contributor

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    If someone was genuinely considering how well their character's name translates to other mediums like video games before starting to write, I'd have to laugh.

    The chances of a book getting that popular are basically zero, and if it makes it there, the name will be big enough that mundanity would be no obstacle. How boring is Harry Potter as a name? Didn't stop those game adaptations.
     
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  8. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    Call him, 'Nash', and be done with it!
     
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  9. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    From what? Not being a memorable gaming icon? Cos he ain't. His games overall did okay. Not brilliant.

    Not many people are actually called Harry Potter. Potter is actually a rare name in England. I should know, I come from there. His name's unique enough to be a registered trademark. It just seems common now, post Harry Potter. I'm not saying names have to be exotic, I'm saying they should be considered and deliberated. Like every other aspect of character is considered.

    Go ahead and laugh now. Go ahead. Cos Ima have the last laugh. When my character's pictured on the side of a bus. :p
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2017
  10. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Potter is one of the most common surnames in the UK. 'Smith' is only twice as common.

    You do talk an awful lot of shit.
     
  11. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    No you're full of shit. It's the 209th most common name in Britain. I've never come across Potter in my entire life. It wouldn't be a registered trademark if it was that common.

    0.06% of the country have that name. That's not common. And it was probably even rarer before the Harry Potter books and movies.

    http://surname.sofeminine.co.uk/w/surnames/surname-potter.html
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2017
  12. NiallRoach

    NiallRoach Contributor Contributor

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    Im from England, too.

    Whatever, optimism makes the world go round. Maybe having a snowflake for a name makes it more likely to be adapted to other mediums; the chances are still so ludicrous that to seriously consider that as a factor while be, well, ludicrous.
     
  13. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    I'm not arguing for a snowflake name. I'm arguing for a considered name.

    We can extend your logic to other aspects of characterization. You may as well rush character design as well as development. Odds on it making major money is low anyway. So just breeze through it. Except we don't breeze through it. We try our best in the hopes of success.

    If a considered name can make even a slight difference in a character's chances of success compared to a name that is not well thought out, there's no reason not to do it. There are writers here who say they only spend ten minutes. Ten minutes?! Do you have a date in twenty or something?
     
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  14. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    There are tons and tons of novels that will never be video games, comic books, television shows because the story just doesn't translate that way. It's not everyone's ultimate goal to have their story adapted to every possible medium. The names I choose fit my story, not some ridiculous notion that someday someone will make a video game out of a literary short story or novel. I write in a contemporary setting; the names fit that setting. End of story. Do I consider them? Sure, aesthetically, phonetically. Do I labor over a name to make sure it's High Concept and video game enthusiasts will tremble with excitement to hear the character's name? Absolutely not.

    People have different goals than you. That fact doesn't mean everyone else is missing the mark.

    ETA: You talked about character design, and I want to mention that this is also not important for some writers/styles. (Assuming you're talking about physical character design.) I RARELY describe what a character looks like, and when I do, it's seldom more than a fleeting mention because in what I write, it's not important. It would be ludicrous for me to spend any time developing the physical characteristics for any of my characters. My stories don't generally call for it.

    Does that mean I'm doing something wrong? Emphatically, no. It means I have a vision for my story and it doesn't match what you do in graphic novels.
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2017
  15. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    Henry Potter is Harry, unless you are modern gauche, call the poor child Charlie, for example, or Xhaerliye, American.
     
  16. zoupskim

    zoupskim Contributor Contributor

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    My dad was a SWAT team member in the US Air Force, my brother is an Army JTAC, and an Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran, and I am a US Marine and an Afghanistan Veteran. We'be all lost friends in training, my brother and I have lost friends in the latest wars, and I've literally pulled kids out of an upside-down vehicle.

    Our names are Donald, Mark, and Zackary. Please, don't change the name of your character to something stupid. Jayce sounds like a real name.
     
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  17. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    It's just a 'thing' like Brits and bad teeth - Americans & names - detailed in Freakonomics, years ago.
     
  18. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I find the very idea that one of my characters might be in a video game to be somewhat creepy. It's really not something in my landscape.
     
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  19. zoupskim

    zoupskim Contributor Contributor

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    I do the same, or don't the same. Even my own imagining of most characters is bland; brown hair, brown eyes, taller or shorter, but really just a person. I'll definitely describe their physical anima; their mannerisms and way of expression or interacting with people. Besides that, they're just people. Purple haired, razor-jawed teenagers described in painful detail is for visual mediums like comics.
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2017
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  20. texshelters

    texshelters Active Member

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    Great post, thanks!

    I have a character who's name is a Spanish slang word. Then I looked it up. It's also a Hebrew name with significant meaning. So, her father is Mexican and her mother is Jewish and she is named after her grandmother from Israel. The point is, there is a reason behind the name. So if Jayce is greek, great! Use it. For my other characters, I chose names that sounded right or had a reference point. I used a famous dystopian character's name for the last name of my sympathetic antagonist, for example. Peace, Tex
     
  21. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    Books as opposed to any other medium put the audience in direct contact with the characters for much longer periods and you are going to hear every character name a whole lot of times. That's important. You don't have the pictures there to tell you who is speaking like in a comic book or movie. Even with a first person narrator who doesn't say her own name a lot, just the flow of dialog means that her names is going to be said by other people much more than in other media forms. And it's that frequent, near constant exposure to something that slurps away it's seemingly mundane qualities and makes you think the other way with it; that what you think about is this character when you hear the name, not what the name tells you about the character. Frequent exposure and much much greater space for characterization in a book means that, at least if you do it well, the actual name itself doesn't really matter at all because the reader invests with them and as long as your story is paced well then they'll invest quickly with the character. It's the investment that really matters not the name.

    The thing is that dynamic, sexy, interesting character names are kinda a tell tale of badly written fiction because they are trying to use a name in a way that names don't actually really work. People don't choose their names and when their names are chosen for them it's before anyone knows if they will be a murderer or Nobel prize winner. It's entirely metatexual and it's a cheap way to try and make boring characters seem more interesting. It's a like some sixteen year old telling you his name is Spider or Axle; it's forced and clearly trying too hard, both things that no-one who is actually cool really does.

    First impressions do matter of course but I think you overestimate how important a name is in making them. It's all the other words on the blurb that people care about and that inform their decisions much more. Imagine picking up a random book; when you read the blurb you want to know what kind of book this is (romance, crime, whatever) you want to know what it's angle is (grim and gritty or saccharine escapism) and what the hook is (...Will he get there in time?). The name of the main character definitely won't sell you on a romance if you don't like romance, no matter how good it is. When you read the back of the book you're just looking at other things to tell you if this is something that you might enjoy. The marketing around books is more on the title than the character name, and when characters go off into other media it's because they are already compelling characters not because of their names.

    Remember also that names are more than just names. There's lots and lots of space to place with them and do interesting things that do inform the character. That's something that I think more writers really should avail themselves of when they write. You start with just a name, but then you need to think about what people call them in different situations and with different relationships. This is something I do a lot of and it's not some big deal but it's a great way to quietly inform relationships without labouring that point.

    Some examples from my work; Elizabeth Cromwell is a fairly mundane name. Her friends all call her Beth, but when she was younger she was always Lizzie. She changed when she went to secondary school because Beth is more cool and grown up and Lizzie is a bit babyish. Her nemesis at school calls her Lizzie for that reason, because it's much less cool. But her mum still calls her Lizzie and her dad calls her Princess. When she's pissed off she'll snap at her mum for still calling her Lizzie but she doesn't mind her dad babying her by calling her princess. Previously Beth Cromwell was in fact Beth Sutton before her parents divorced and because she misses her dad and kinda hates her mum for making him leave she still thinks of herself as being Sutton even if no-one would reasonably call her that.

    Elijah Gortner was born in a cult and his adoptive mother calls him Ellie, which is natural enough for a mum calling her 'son'; it's cute and affectionate. And because he never gets out into the real world he just kinda sticks as Ellie, never knowing that actually Ellie is a girls name in the real world, something that he has to deal with when he meets other kids for the first time when he's sixteen and gets bullied for being the ultimate uncool kid; quiet, religious with no friends and a girly name. But he makes the name his own and he's Ellie his whole life. His adoptive mother and later wife is Judith Levy but Ellie is only person she's ever known who actually called her Judith. To everyone else she's Jude or Judy including her parents and her friends in the church, but when she first met Ellie she introduced herself as Judith and that stuck. It's actually weird to him that people call her anything else and he was so sheltered that he never saw anyone else call her by her name as he was growing up.

    Natalie Gruffudd spends most of her book being called Tally, a diminutive I've never even heard in the real world from Natalie, because her boyfriend is a Roma boy and when they first meet he gives her a Romani sounding name, like she was Natalia. Melissa Warner is Lissa not Mel, hating her family and fighting hard to define herself on her own terms. And on and on.

    None of these are especially interesting names really, at least not their official names. There's not much of anything in them really. They don't say anything about the characters, nor do they especially grip the reader in that form. When I was coming up with names I wasn't thinking about any of this, I just picked names semi-randomly. I was at uni with a girl called Beth so I used her name. I picked Elijah because he was a boy prophet and so is Ellie. Judith I picked because it's my mum's name and when I saw it on a list of biblical women's names I couldn't resist it because it'll freak some people out that I named the older woman who has a romantic pseudo-incestual relationship with her adoptive son is named after my actual mother. I chose Natalie because I liked Tally as an affectionate name and worked backwards. And as I wrote those names really came to life, sometimes because I saw an opportunity to play with them directly (Lissa being militant about not being called Mel) or just because they fell into place (Ellie seemed the only obvious diminutive from Elijah).

    The point of all of this not that these names don't matter; it's that in the end they matter because you write them to matter. You can choose any name and find interesting stuff to do with it. It's not the chosen name that matters, it's what you do with it. It legitimately doesn't matter what name you initially choose because it's just a starting point towards the actually interesting things with the character.
     
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  22. ajaye

    ajaye Senior Member

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    I can't write till I have a name for my MC, for me it goes hand in hand with the development of the character.

    I used to use baby books and the like. Recently I've made a point of watching the credits after tv shows/movies and have picked up the odd nugget there.
     
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  23. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    Naming characters...

    During a 'pants' draft, I just wing it and give all characters whatever name comes to mind the first time she or he pops up.

    During rewrites, I make an Excel table with a column for first name, another for surname, then two more for meanings of each. Once all the names are filled in, I sort alphabetically so I know I'm not using the same first letter for more than one name. And if I am, I change the name(s) of the least important of the two (or more) characters who use the same letter.

    But I'm big on name meanings. I like to think names are significant at some level. For instance, my real name—including my middle name—has the meaning: Royal Conqueror of the Earth. How could I not put stock in name meanings! :)
     
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  24. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    I do agree that the best place to start is just to grab for whatever name comes to mind; unless it's something stupid or hard to say then mostly it's better to stick with that. If you do it well then you'll often find that changing a name is a lot of work, far more than just a find replace, because you've played a bit with the name and how the character feels about it. But if you get to the end and you really want to change it then fine. But even then I wouldn't suggest a 'method' of finding names.

    Names certainly have meanings in the sense that they are words that often meant other things first but that's going to go way over the head of most readers unless it's something so obvious that you wouldn't want to do it. It's nice when these things line up for you, absolutely, and it's nice to draw certain links to mythological or biblical figures through the names you give. But remember that, unless I missed a meeting, you are not actually the conqueror of earth, at least not yet. And that's kinda my point. It's cool to have that sort of thing but it doesn't really speak to your character or achievements, does it? Surnames aren't even thought up, you just get what your family gives you, and first names are come up with on the basis of trends and fashion and what sounds nice mostly.

    I think it's just a better idea to pick names on the same basis as parents do; what sounds nice, what means something to you personally, what are we going to actually call the kid.
     
  25. rktho

    rktho Contributor Contributor

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    It could be Jax, short for Jackson. I don't know
    Is the e in Jayce silent or not? I thought it was pronounced JAY-see until I saw this. If the e is silent, you should consider dropping the y and dropping with Jace. Which could also be short for Jacen, a nod to Star Wars: Legends.
    The reason I thought the e was spoken because I have a friend named Kayce that's pronounced like Casey.
     

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