I've been trying to find a name for my character for a while now but I just can't find the perfect name. A bit about her: she's fourteen, has depression and anxiety, terribly insecure but has spunk and a sense of humour if you can get past the initial issues. She ran away from home since she felt she didn't have a good life with her rich family. Strong person and quite intelligent. TIA
I've been through a lot of the baby name sites, but I haven't used a character name generator. I think I'll try that. I actually love Josie - it's the perfect name for my character - but not only do I know someone by that name but it's my own (rarely used) nickname...
Does she have split personality disorder as she sounds like she is two different people.... Name her Mary....
Aside from baby name websites, I found that if you have any year book available, they're also a great source of name inspiration. I play a certain life simulator game as well so I accumulated a small list of a few hundred names from sources like that alone. I like the names Camilla and Josie, and to add to the list of possibilities... Andi, Blair, Danielle (Daniella?), Mandy, Morgan (Morgana?), Natalie, Nola (Noelle?), and Shannon
Is it really that hard to name characters? I mean as the story goes on, readers are likely to get used to whatever name you choose. I like to keep it simple and use names that are pretty common. A name is probably the least important part of developing a character.
Thank you for your suggestions guys! @Indigo Abbie - Daniella is perfect! I'm so going with that! @deadrats - It's as hard as you want it to be, but I personally don't like picking random names. Names have meanings and some names are just totally wrong for a certain character, while others just work!
When we are born and given names, there's no way to tell if such a label is going to fit or be appropriate. And yet it all tends to work out for the most part. I would be careful putting too much stock in a name, especially if it's supposed to mean something. It could come across as a little too convenient. And, again, a name is the least important part of character development. Good luck.
That is actually a neat point. It would be comical to see a story about a character named Grace who happens to be clumsy, or perhaps an apostate named Faith. May be slightly off topic, but it's all too real to have a name that directly comes from the religion of your parents as well. Then once you're grown you convert to something else or drop religion all together, but you still carry that name.
think background! It's the parents who name babies. What girl's names were in vogue in 2004 among the social class of her parents? Not Katrina! even though it was Make sure you're not out of date for her age-group or out of synch with her ethnic and social background. Try looking up birth announcements for that year in the kind of newspaper her parents would read.
Would it really be comical? Wouldn't it maybe seem like the author is trying too hard? Or like it's just too perfect? You can have a clumsy Grace or a Grace who looks like she moves on air. Either way, you are asking the name to do a lot of work and coming out with a kind of cliche situation.
I think that what you need to think about when you're naming a character is not what they're like, but what their parents are like. What would they consider to be a good name for a child? For example, one of my characters' mothers is quite traditional and so would have none of all this new-fangled "name-your-baby-a-word-that-means-something-to-you"-type nonsense, and she also has a taste for the finer things in life, so she would have chosen something relatively fancy, although she's too sensible to go too "out-there", so she named her only child "Vanessa". (And yes, I did make all that up after I'd picked the name.) When I read your character description, the thing that jumped out at me was "rich". In that case (although maybe it's different in America) I'd go for something quite traditional and also quite flowery. I go to private school, and the names that crop up most often there are things like Jemima, Florence, Antonia, Anna, Talullah, Tabitha, Eleanor, Sophie/Sophia, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Martha, Abigail, Emily, Molly, Julia, or Jasmine (often shortened - Mima, Tia, Lulah, Jazz, Nell, etc.). And there's a girl in my year with four names! (Double-barrel first name and double-barrel surname.) So don't be afraid to go for something a bit posh and "out-there". There are a lot of "weird" names at my school, and also names I thought had sunk without trace, such as Nancy or Kitty. And can I add my wholehearted approval of Josie? We've got quite a few of those, too!
Yes. The name of real people reflects their parents choices, their upbringing, and the society they live in more than their personality. My first name is a christian biblical character because my parents are christians, and my last name reflects my euro-american heritage. I think you should name your character in a way that reflects where they come from, NOT what they are like as a person. If they have a nick-name it's different.
What's her parents' socio-economic background? Given that the parents usually get the credit (or blame) for names, someone whose family is deeply in academia is going to choose something very different from say sports-mad working class. That being said, pretty much anything can be justified - my teacher relative named her baby Kayla after her favourite soap opera character (who I'd never heard of and 20 years later I still wince a little). Looking at what celebrities/TV or film characters were big the year she was born might give you some ideas. My taste in names tends to old-fashioned and slightly odd, so probably aren't the best person to suggest them (but then hey, at least I can feel fairly secure that they're not going to suffer from bad-romance-heroine-overuse!!), but you can get ideas about what was in fashion (in the US, at least) from https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/
