I've started working on a story set in World War 2 and in it, the main character is going to go into hiding from the Nazis. Her parents are in the resistance and get arrested and the Nazis who arrest her family know there's a child (the main character). The story will jump between diary entries and events that are going on in the story and the character is keeping a diary (she'll be an older child just starting out herself in the resistance) How do I pick a suitable name for the character? I'm torn between setting a resistance up in Nazi Germany itself (for the story), or going with the place I know had a resistance and setting the story in France? I'll probably think up more questions as I write it.
What's her ethnic background? What's her social status? How well educated are her parents? Can't choose a name without knowing those kind of details first.
behindthename.com surnames.behindthename.com I will never stop recommending those websites. Once you've decided whether your resistance will be in France or Germany (and there were resistance groups there, too, but on a smaller scale) you can just click on the appropriate country and take your pick. I find, if you keep looking, one name will just "click".
If the character is from a strong Jewish family, then I would go with something from that area and time period. Also remember the character's personality should flow nicely with the name.
For my story, I used the above sites for lus a couple others that are similar (Google is your friend) to find some of the most common names from the regions where my characters originated. The name for one of my MCs, Marko Horvat, is the Croatian equivalent of John Smith.
It would depend on their background. a French name for a Frenchman a German name for a German, so on and so forth.
Interesting. One of my old friends (of indeterminate "American" ancestry) is a Horvat. I'll have to ask him about that someday.
It's the most popular surname in Croatia, mostly because it means "Croat" (or so I understand from this): Some facts on Horvat, the most popular Croatian surname! Horvat, the most frequent surname in Croatia, doesn’t end in –ić, but is common for a different reason: the name Horvat comes from the Croatian word Hrvat (Croat). It was estimated that of 4.3 million Croatians more than 22,000 have the last name Horvat(according to the 2011 census). Related surnames such as Horvatinčić or Horvatić – i.e. “son of Horvat” are also not uncommon.
