That's how it works for me most of the time. If my brain stops functioning I'll just pick up the phone book to give it a nudge.
I don't believe in giving a character a name that echoes his or her personality as life isn't like that. I once knew a man called Butch who was thin, weak and a bookworm. So what I do is simply give a character a name I like and stick with it. Usually the name fits the person rather well anyway so i don't mind.
Name isn't entirely irrelevant to personality. The confident, dangerous international secret agent would almost certainly never be named Jimmy or even Jim. James is inevitable for the same birth name. Will the person who grew up saddled with the name Wilbur ever be taken seriously, assuming he never decides to refer to himself as Wil instead? How about Milton or Cosmo? Or Adolph in a post-WW2 world? Johnny Cash wrote a song about A Boy Named Sue. A name like that, or names like Moon Unit or Dweezil, definitely have an effect on how a person grows up.
As another example of the above, Jospeh and be considered a posher or more clean-cut Joey. Jack is a snappier version of John. Even celebrities chagne their names forthe sake of being misunderstood. Before becoming an actor, a young Walter Willis changed his name to Bruce..
My second novel is set in Essex yet there is no "Sharon" or Tracey" in sight! More to do with "class" than geography, for those familiar with Essex the characters live in Ingatestone and have a yacht at Burnham marina. The genre of the novel is also extemely important as well. One of my aversions to the Mills and Boon type of romance is the "made-up" names of the characters, that's how they sound to me, anyway. Not real. JMHO.
i just make up names that i think have nice rings to them, like Lyle Beckett or Parker Searson. not too much of a big deal.
I find that names are one of the most important things. For me, it's the difference between a persona the reader will love or hate. e.g. I would never take the name Susie seriously as it is just too comical. It doesn't inspire anything. I wouldn't be surprised if someone would think Susie is a strong name. I suppose it depends on your exposure to the name. Although, you don't have a poll where readers can tell you if they like the name, right? I try to find names that match the area and time, as well as have strong and meaningful names. I don't mean that they have a meaning per se but they inspire something. The best way to come up for names, for me, is to pretty much make them up by thinking of random words and placing them around and repeating it over and over in my hand. "Paper towel, toiletries, brush, comb, coomb, boom, doom, scroom, shroom, froom, droon, droyne, kroyne, broyne, broyen, brooks, broyn, broom, brunel." Brunel, I kinda like that. Yes, I actually did as I typed. Made it rather hard as my thought train was rather slow.
looking at name meanings is a good idea. i wanted to have an islamic character, because that kind of perspective would be extremely interesting for the kind of story i had lined up. so i scanned through a list of arabic names and surnames and found Rashid Haddad, meaning "man of wise council" or "wise in the faith" which is conveniently reflective of his character. *i already had the name Rashid in mind though, so... i dunno. still helps the process.*
That's kind of like the way I come up with fantasy-ish names. I'll just start grappling with different vowels and consonants, slapping them together at random until I come up with something interesting. A few things I just did off the top of my head: Kieldra, Fistro, Leera, Brax, Palder... Of course, I don't write the "Medieval elves and dragons and magic and EVIL KING!!!" kind of fantasy, so that method of coming up with names doesn't see much use. I tend to use names that you might feasibly see in the real world. For example, my current main character is named Fox. There's a very good reason why I gave her that name.
I was doing a USA TODAY Crossword yesterday when I accidentally circled the letters "Z-I-R-O" and I thought what a great name that was.
For me it depends on where a character comes from. that really decides what feel the name has, of course if you;re writing fantasy still applies - you cant have a character coming from a medieval european feeling place with a strange asian sounding name. At least, not if you dont want it to feel odd. I found a good website called 'random name generator' or something like that. I generates (you guessed it) random names but you get to pick the theme, like english, french, nordic, or more exotic ones like basque, or mythogogy. Anyway, then you can pick what name feels right out of those, and even change it a bit. it at least gives you a start. Oh and it also gives you where the name comes from/ what it means. Hope thats helpful! Hyo
I don't think character names are unimportant at all. While meanings aren't too important to me, (as usually I don't even realize them), the sound of the name and things associated with it are in my opinion extremely important. Names like Katie are very generic and don't reflect the character's identity at all. Yes, parents don't know their children's personalities beforehand, and they don't think of that when they're naming their child. I do think though, that it can reflect the parents' personalities, which often reflect or at least impact their child's own. But I love how John Green talks about his reasoning for the mc's name in his book, Paper Towns. The video (begins talking about this at 0:57): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4JVmv9Shpk&eurl=http://www.sparksflyup.com/weblog.php
I never have a problem coming up with names. I have noticed that all my stories contain a lead character whose name start with "Ja-". Jason, Jared, etc. I don't consciously do this, it just ends up that way. I've actually deliberately changed a character's name a few times to break the pattern.
So then why is James Bond sometimes referred to in the novel Casino Royale as 'Jimmy' and 'Jimbo'? The first dramatisation on the radio of a James Bond novel in the 1950s he was called 'Jimmy Bond'. I think the name of a person shapes their personality, but does not define it.
I sometimes look through a baby book for names. Look at one that also gives a meaning when yu see it you'll know its right
When I think or hear any particular name, I instantly have a feeling for that person, even without meeting them. For example, I dislike most names which start with Br, like Branden, Braden, Brogan, but for some reason Brendan is alright. My main character is named Isaac, which is a name that seems synonymous with goodness and spirituality when I think of it. Another minor character in my story is an innocent teenage kid, and he's called "Liam" because that strikes me as a particularly innocent name. I think it really comes down to personal experiences with certain names. If you once had a crush on a girl called Sophie, perhaps you'll always subconsciously associate that name with attractiveness or kindness.
I tend to write characters that are based (albeit sometimes very loosely) on people I know or have met. I tend to then use their middle name if they have one and I know it, or their first name. Surnames I generally use from someone else I know of the same creed/class/origin. Let's face it, we all know people with really dull names, and the odd person with a wierd or unusual name. If I read a story with a lot of unusual names, I know the writer is trying too hard. I also bear in mind that whilst there are trends in names, the people in the story would have been named years ago, in another decade or even century, by people who grew up before then and were subjected to different influnces.
Well, my first advice is to not take the video game or fantasy story route, which is basically this: Make up a cool, fictional name for your main character, but make up a cool but evil-sounding name for your bad guy. Bad guy names: Ganondorf. Voldamort Chron Commander Grievous (Oh, brother. . . ~_~; ) I cannot think of any more, but I'm sure there are other 'evil' names chosen for that ULTIMATE BADDY! I am going to clarify: There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with fabricating fantasy names that sound cool for all of your characters, but if you make someone born with a special power (wind, for example) and his name just HAPPENS to be Airwind, then you have an incredible and incredibly coincidental coincident, there. Using names from video games is a good idea (I know a guy who uses Sareth as his online handle; says he got it from a video game. It's excellent.) as well as from movies and, if all else fails, online websites that list names for your child. Just to give you an idea of the diversity that can be used, here is some of the cast of my story: Atari (A band, a video game console, a video game company and a word in Japanese that means something like 'hit the target') Gilder (The name of some guy from a video game) Mia (A cute name. I don't know anything about the origins of this one, just that it sounds sweet) Naiko (A name my sister fabricated a long time ago.) You can find names, anywhere! Another way to make names is to take words - any words - and mix them up or shorten them or use them without changing them at all! (Tremor, Amble, Swath) A problem I am personally having is that one of my characters' names is Mia (pronounced mee-yuh) and ANOTHER name I WANT to use is Saiya (say-yuh) but as you can see, they both sound similar (particularly, in the last syllables) and that drives me CRAZY. I can't STAND having two characters with such similar names, but they are different enough that I still want to use them both. Also, it would add to the believability factor, because of the coincidence of two people having similar (but different) names, as happens often in real life. Aaah! What to do!
I use a bunch of different random name generators. XD http://www.behindthename.com/random/ http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php
Hmmm, naming characters, huh? Usually I find a name on my own, or they come up with one before I can start asking. Lillian, my current MC of the book I'm writing, wasn't Lillian at first. I think I started writing with the name Alice and somewhere in the middle of the one chapter she just blatantly told me no way that was her name. When I'm in doubt and need to find a name, or just don't have one that's working, I check out Baby Name Newtork. They've got meanings and oddball names galore, enough that I've got a dozen names for minor characters when they start to roll into the canvas. It's all about trial and error. Just keep playing with names until you find one that works.
i believe its the era that sets it somewhat. prehistorically speaking i doubt if many Bob's were running around, some years i find have their favourites. i try to stay away from ones that cause my tongue to stutter espeically in sci-fic when dealing with aliens. 'Arqlixtsanuk' nearly broke a tooth just typing that.
Nice.. there's some fun stuff on that second link. In case it's any use to anyone here (though I wrote it for different reasons to fiction writing) my offering to random name generators is here: http://iolair.net/cgi-bin/personmaker.cgi Personally though, my MC's name is too important a choice to leave down to the computer - although it's a good source of ideas. I might use the generator for minor characters though (in something I wrote a while ago, one of my characters was a schoolteacher and I used the generator to find out the names of kids in her class).
I always choose the names after I have described them, they usually end up being named after the person I know who happens to be most like them. If I don't know anyone like that, I simply come up with a random name. Simplistic, I know, but it works for me.
This is one thing I've never really had trouble with. I can usually come up with a name I feel really fits my character. I usually get my names/surnames from day to day situations. If I cross paths with someone whose name I happen to like, I make myself remember it for future writing purposes. Then as I think up my character, the name I both like and feels to "fit" them, just pops up in my head, and thus they're named. edit: I should also point out I don't generally write fantasy.
I try to ignore any particularly common names for people of the age group I expect to read the story, because no doubt the reader will know somebody with that name which will influence their feelings towards your character. Recently I've also started to shun any names which have became common for young children. If I read a story I don't like if a 30 year old character has the same name as my 2 year old daughter, simply because I associate the name with young children and I wouldnt be able to relate it to an older character. Although I do understand my daughter will be 30 one day lol. This doesnt mean I can't use any common names at all, just tend to lean more towards ones which aren't overly used in either of those age groups.
