I'm going through my edits. My characters parents are only mentioned in the first 2 chapters. do they need names? I've been using "Her mother/father" and "[character's] mother/father". The mother had a name, but I thought it was unnecessary to give her a name for 2 chapters... Would it bee too confusing to give them names or keep them without names?
My thought would be, if you didn't provide their names, would the reader later say "I wonder what character X's Mom's name was"? If the answer is no, then I don't see why you need it - unless it's a significant backstory where say the Mom or Dad's career is covered in detail and using 'her mother' gets repetitive.
In the Peanuts cartoons the adults didn't even use words and we never saw their faces or heard their names. They just made 'wah wah' sounds and all we saw were their legs. Yeah, it depends on if you want the characters backgrounded or foregrounded.
If your character is only going to come up at some point in the story or has a little role, I wouldn't give them a name. Too many names (especially the who-is-who) are hard to remember, even simple ones. And I definitely expect a minor character with a name to do something important in the story, so it might be misleading.
Yeah, her parents are really only there to say bye to her in the beginning (as they leave her behind).... And then die toward the end (someone tells her her family died in a plague). I just thought it was weird to keep writing "her parents this" and "her mom/dad said that" But agreed... If they arent any more prominent than that, then i guess they shouldnt have names
Her aunt, though, is seen just as many times as the parents, but she has a name. She's mentioned throughout the story because my MC looks up to her and refers to her a lot.
For lesser characters I don’t think it’s crucial. I have several walk-on characters who don’t have anything more complex than a first name or a generic description, like the kid at the gas station, store clerk, strap hanger, Walk-ons are disposable; they serve their purpose, and walk on never to be heard from again.
I think it is author preference and you can execute it well in either direction. Some authors name everyone. The most blatant naming for no reason would be The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe where C.S. Lewis names Ivy, Margaret and Betty as the professor's three maids, then proceeds to tell the reader they don't come into the story much, which they never do. Robert Jordon executes it much better in The Wheel of Time but also names minor characters, gives them personalities and such but once the plot moves on, the characters are also left, many to never be seen again. For me less is usually more. Unless I intend to have my character interact with a certain location more than once I tend to leave names off. Look at the example below. Does naming the blacksmith Pete in the second example really do anything? If I am not ever going to have him in the story again? To me as a reader I see a name and its a tip off that this character is important and I find it kind of...a let down I guess, to find they are a nobody minor character. If I know an author writes like that (big Wheel of Time fan) then I can accommodate it but it isn't my style. The blacksmith stood in his smithy, surrounded by piles of raw steel demanding his attention. But all the craftsman's concentration was on the glowing ingot he was hammering into a horse shoe. He broke out in snatches of song to the tune of his hammer, his singing bringing self-amusement until, quenching the horse shoe in a billow of steam, he exploded in rolling laughter. The blacksmith, who's name was Pete, stood in his smithy, surrounded by piles of raw steel demanding his attention. But all the craftsman's concentration was on the glowing ingot he was hammering into a horse shoe. He broke out in snatches of song to the tune of his hammer, his singing bringing self-amusement until, quenching the horse shoe in a billow of steam, he exploded in rolling laughter.
I think it's almost a given that a reader will assume, if a character is named, that this character will be important in the story. Certainly they will expect this character to appear more than once. I'd be cautious about giving your spear carriers names. If your character asks the store attendant for a box of paracetamol, it's probably not necessary to name the store attendant—even if the character does know this person. As others have said, it can be done ...but the downside is your reader will probably assume this store attendant is going to be important as a character, and should be remembered. At the start of a story, the reader is probably trying to remember everybody, so this would just be an additional burden. Going hand in hand with this issue is the issue of introducing too many characters all at one time. Better to introduce them gradually, giving each one some sort of personality or position of importance, so they will be remembered.
I've had short story rejections that specifically told me I should give certain characters names. Then, after naming these characters, I ended up selling each of those stories once these characters names no matter how small a role they played in the story. However, I think you're okay. Your MC isn't going to call her parents by anything other than mom and dad. An aunt she probably would say "Aunt Carol" or whatever her name is.
The first and most important principle of character naming for me is "is anyone likely to say their name?", the more likely someone is to to say the name the more reason you have to name the character. And I think that can include throwaway character who are only referred to by their first-name, it can be made clear who is important and in what way so the reader isn't left hanging. For an example, Wolf Hall in both book and television form includes various named characters of minimal importance. In the television version Wolsey names one attendant as "Peter" when he gives him a cloak in the opening sequence. And you can argue one reason for that is to establish that Wolsey is familiar with his servant's personally; he is characterised positively as a generous, though vain, master. But it also works because it is clear the character is not supposed to be important, h appears briefly and is not shown in much focus in the shot. No-one particularly expects the character to appear. Similarly, if in text form it is clear a character is unimportant or is dead or something, giving them a name is reasonably safe from creating false expectations. I think you can distinguish between narration and dialogue. If the narration doesn't use a name but another character cites a first name once, it is easier to tell they are probably not important. That's one way you can make it clearer. So while you shouldn't name every throwaway extra, no-one does that, it is okay to give minor characters names. Even in books without a huge amount of characters you can definitely do that. The Skulduggery Pleasant series includes a number of minor named characters who have only a single memorable scene. I don't think it's quite as straightforward as every named will be expected to be significant. If there are parents appearing and being referenced multiple times, someone referring to them by name once or twice isn't going to create much of a misleading impression. Parents being relatively unimportant and/or dying is extremely common in fiction, because parents as major characters get in the way for most stories that aren't coming-of-age, and not even in that are they are commonly important. Where parents are important characters within the main contemporary plot action it is usually one more so than the other, e.g. Indian Jones has his father and not his mother, Enola Holmes has her mother and not her father. If the parents are conspicuously referred to as a unit, "her parents", then them being unimportant characters who die is the expected outcome if anything, even if you reference first names once. I think you could do either way.
You don't need names unless it's to clarify who the person is, in dialogue etc. It can get annoying saying, e.g.: the first man, the other man etc! Interestingly, the protagonist in "Rebecca", which is written in 1st person, is never named.
Just write comedy. Then you can come up with ridiculous names. For example, I have a (very minor, only mentioned twice) character in my HHGTG-inspired novel named, and titled, Galactic Prime Mordial Firstly Last.
Every character has a rank. Giving a character a name is to promote that character to a higher rank. The waiter who brings drinks to the table should probably not have a name. If you do name him, the reader will expect him to play a larger part in the story.
