Difficulty With Creating Names

Hey as the title implies, whenever I write stories I find it very difficult to write names. In my head my character is usually extremely thought out, but almost always nameless.
Currently I'm begining a fantasy novel (my first) which is based manly in a multi-cultural city. The city itself is a mixture of asian (Japanese Hindi - in its beliefs and magic) and europian (in its appearance and culture), and they have residents from across that continent, so I don't know which languadge to base my names on, especially since it's a fantasy world where I don't see real names working

 

This site might help:
http://www.behindthename.com/names/list.php
I've used it to look for a proper ethnic Arabic name for a character.

 

Try the random name generator on Seventh Sanctum here http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php
There's a few different options depending on your genre etc, and you can choose between male/female

 

when i'm stumped on choosing a name, i just grab my phone book and start browsing...

 

I often gravitate towards names that have a meaning relating to my character. I'll search for names that mean strong or deceptive, and pick from that list.

 

If I did that I'd end up with a character named Decepticon

 

I did write a short story once about a butt ton of different nymphs. I ended up having a flower nymph named Fleur... lol It worked out though.

 

I think that's the accepted method of naming Sith Lords.

 

Don't over think it and keep it fairly simple. There's nothing worse than fantasy names where you can't even guess a gender, or those blinking apostrophes, or something unpronounceable.

 

If you’re tired of using common names in your stories, you’ve come to the right place. This article will teach you how to make up unique names as well as where to search for interesting and uncommon ones.

 

I have a book filled with names. Nameberry is really good too- it's run by the same people who wrote the book I own. I love randomly picking a page and trying to build a story around the strangest name on the page. I'm a bit addicted- I keep the book in my handbag.

 

It would be difficult if not impossible to generate a name that suggests both Asian and European influences because Asian and European languages have entirely different linguistic roots. If you really wanted to, you would have to go all the way back to the ancient Indo European Aryan (<--not the Nazi version).

 

The languadge is asian, so all the names are as well. The culture and way of life is more medival europian

 

Then look up some examples of actual Indian or Japanese place names and make composites by combining parts of different names together, like Mangalipur or Sekkonbashi.

 

Thanks. Some of my names were in fact English words that have a connection to the character translated to Japanese (with some minor changes). I decided to go mainly Japanese because I think it's a good mixture of asian culture (the japanese religion) and is rather similar in sosiety to Europe (feudalism)

 

And the name sites helped me a lot. Thanks

 

Another possible search might be for brandable domain names, like those on http://www.brandbucket.com .

 

There's been like three or four threads on creating names recently...

 

btw the Hindi word for magic is "Jadu" and the Japanese word is "Majuku".

 

This is the second time so I'm gonna come out and say it...

It's "language" - not "languadge" - that extra D drives me NUTS. Sorry

And it's "European".

Okay grammar nazi is happily asleep again.

Names... Your best bet is really just to start writing and list them. At some point a name pops out and you know it's just right, or at least after a while you realise the name really fits. I start thinking about what I want the thing or person to be associated with, and think along those lines.

So maybe think about what you want your character to represent, or what they're like, or the meaning you want their name to hold, and start thinking along those lines like a spider diagram until you see something you like.

Sometimes I use Google translate too and then merge different roots of the same word from different languages.

But sometimes these things just take time. My MC went through 4 name changes before I settled on Will. Mine's fantasy too - I don't think you necessarily need all made-up names depending on how you write it.

My friend has a habit of picking actual words and turning them into names, and they're quite pretty. Two of her characters are Cascade and Essence. You could do that too.