does anyone else have trouble naming characters??

While I think that naming characters is neither the hardest thing, nor the easiest thing, about writing, I thought I'd share a few specific problems I had in that area:

I named one of my characters "John Alden," a history teacher who, on retirement from teaching, opened an antiques shop in Massachusetts, and is a descendant of former President John Adams. (I actually got the name "Alden" reading about the Adams family, that's another name in the family tree. I liked the name and decided to use it.) Then, months later, I learned that there's a historian named "John Alden." I still haven't settled on what I'm going to change the guy's name to, but I can't keep it as that as someone is liable to think that I based John Alden on the real-life John Alden, and I certainly don't want to risk a libel suit, even though I never heard of the historian before I created my character. I was thinking of minor modification like "Jason Alden," but it is almost certainly still be too close -- I may just have to completely rename the guy.

After I learned that, I decided to try googling some of my other character's names. One of my main heroes is named "Matthew Rush," a minister for the United Church of Christ whose hand was scarred when he was a child during a fire in a church. Who knew, after googling, I'd find out that that's the name of a gay porn star? I'll probably keep that name, however, as most people won't know that and my character bears no resemblance to the real life person.

Finally, a different problem...

I had two main characters: One named "Beth" and one named "Elizabeth."
I'm not sure I should keep it that way. It honestly never occurred to me that "Beth" can be short for "Elizabeth." I was thinking short for "Bethany."
I'm not sure but I may have to change one of their names as well.

Charlie

 

Sometimes, but not all the times, my characters' names just come to me. Other times I have to wrack my brain out for one. Mostly though, what I look for in a name is something that's not commonly used, because I noticed a lot of people tend to compare say "Johnny" with someone they know, like Johnny Cash - my mother actually did this on several occasions though the two were complete opposites.

I do have one character though that completely takes the cake in the naming world though, at least that's what I've been told by family and friends. She's a werewolf, and everyone knows how werewolves are weak to the element silver, well, her name is Silver.

But anyway, I really don't do a lot of surenames with my characters, so I can't help there. Mostly I use titles. Like Silver of the Moonlight, or Ryuuk of the Black-Backs.

Try looking names up, and then whatever you like, try mixing it up into a unique name. I've done it before, and came up with some promising resualts.

 

i find it hard to come up with fantasy character names. Well, i dont but i dont like over doing them. I recently named a character Beef. Yes, thats right i have a character called Beef

 

I use this thing:

http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php

Found it posted on this very forum. Haha, I'm really no good at making up names on the spot. Only very rarely do I come up with a good name for a character right off the bat.

 

I have a few standard formats for character names:

Personal name, patronymic, description is the one I use most often. Constantin MacDomhnall Donnsleibhe is a good example.

Personal name, patronymic, such as Seonaidh Mac an Sporrain, is another one.

My favourite is the personal name, patronymic, clan name, and description. I only use this with Domhnall MacIain MacAonghas MacDomhnuill Cathach, which translates as Donald son of Iain son of Angus son of world rulers the warlike.

You can use the formats yourself, if you want. Find a word that describes your character, and spell it wrong. Use it as a part of their name.

 

I used to use the phone book. Just open it up at a page, and stick your finger on an entry, hey presto, you've got your character.

Now, I like to get to know my characters, and then decide on a name after I know what they're like. I've noticed in real life that people tend to be very similar to their names... I've never encountered an Ashley I got on with, all the Victoria's I know tend to be aloof and fashion conscious, Jennifers tend to be slightly mad but very agreeable... so I decide my character's traits and then work on it from there.
Could just be me though.

 

Scotland appears to have a wealth of names that could work as character names. I beleive there is a book out there with a character (possibly a mouse type thing) called Findo Gask. This is the name of a small village south of Perth on the A9.

I've always liked Nether Finlarg myself... shame I'd never write a fantasy book, but feel free to steal...

 

If I'm writing general fiction, I tend to look at the year my character was born for a first name online. There are a ton of sites with top 10 to top 100 names of each year. I never choose the number one name, unless my character's parents would have chosen it.

Then I either use a phone book, face book, or an internet search of surnames based on their possible ethnicity.

I don't tend to write a ton of fantasy, but one a few I was working on I used ancient names that had meanings, like Sophia (meaning wisdom) or something like that...then I just pull a last name together by combining some names of ancient times.

 

Nether Finlarg? I like that. It has a nice ring to it.

 

I have trouble finding english or american names.My head just stucks when i try to remember names and i end putting some names that i read fromvarious stories.

 

The great thing about writing in first person means 9 times out of 10, I don't have to name my MC. I have to name the other characters, which seems actually really easy...it's only the MC that seems resistant to having a name.

As for whether or not all names need to have certain meanings inherent to the story, I'd have to say no. After all, I don't know many people (myself included) who looks up all the names of all the characters in the books they read in order to find out the 'meaning' of the name in order to see if that name 'fits' that character. ><

~Lynn

 

That's in the Cairngorms - I've been there. Already taken, and most tourists would recognise it, I'm sorry to say

EDIT: Dammit, you know...

 

Yes, I've used the name generator a few times, with interesting results. One of my characters' names came back as if on cue, for a tech themed piece.

 

Credits at the end of a movie... There are myriads of names there.

 

There are famous authors who admit they actually didn't think much of the names of their characters and just picked whatever is lying around! JK Rowling for example I believe mentioned she got certain names from street signs, like Snape and Dursley I think. She picked Harry cause she simply liked the name. I just pick names that are not so original because not many will think much of the name.