Having a bit of trouble coming up with names for my two MC, so thought I'd open it up for discussion. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Set during WWII in London MC: Female, 21-years-old, English, student, novelist and playwrite, uses sexual and feminist themes in her work, strong-willed, spiky, belligerent, independent. Secondary MC: Male, 85-years-old, German, famous poet, cranky, wino, nearly blind, still very independent but can no longer take care of himself.
Hmm, I'm not good with names either but I can give you a website. It's so useful. . .it has a huge list of names but it's the 1990 census so I guess you have to pick out names that were popular back in WWII. . .but, that's not a big issue, a simple google search should do it. US Census Names File Click on dist.male.first. The names are ranked in popularity and I thought that was useful. . . but, hope this helps and good luck name hunting.
It's playwright, so you know I don't think the MC needs a particularly fancy name, how about something like Anne, or Angela, or Elizabeth, or Ashley? If you want it to ring particularly British, you might consider naming her after a monarch - like Elizabeth, Mary, Jane, Diana, those sorts of things.
for the girl... these are US names, but the right time period anyway: Most Popular US Names for 1920-1929 It's hard to find lists for as far back as the when the 85-year old would have been born... but some random popular German first names (from a list for the 1890s): 1. Carl / Karl 2. Wilhelm 3. Otto 4. Heinrich 5. Friedrich 6. Paul 7. Hans 8. Gustav 9. Max 10. Ernst 11. Hermann 12. Johannes 13. Adolf / Adolph 14. Fritz 15. August 16. Emil 17. Walter / Walther 18. Robert 19. Franz 20. Hugo 21. Georg 22. Ludwig 23. Johann 24. Willi / Willy 25. Rudolf / Rudolph 26. Oskar / Oscar 27. Alfred 28. Richard 29. Bernhard 30. Josef / Joseph Edit: I completely read that as being World War I for some reason... sorry about that. I replaced the original with the link for 1920s names.
I have to admit that i'm another one who uses this site. Usually i'll search by meaning, using a particular trait that my character has and try and find something. I know when I have the right one because it just jumps out at me.
That's quite a narrow field you've got there for your female character. In WW2 being feminist would have been rare, being a playwrite and novelist, as well as a student would have made her almost unique, and probably world famous if she'd done all that. That said, if that's your character, so be it, someone like that would have to be from a priveleged background. In the 1940s women in further education at the age of 21 would have to be from an extremely upper class and well-to-do family to even have a shot at such an education, so we are talking really posh names here: Unity, Amy, Felicity, Hermione, Cassandra etc. Second name would have to be a posh one too, something like Hamilton, Asquith, Fforbes, Pomeroy, Chessington etc. For your German dude, at 85 years old and around the same time, he'd be born in the mid-nineteenth century, so I'd imagine names such as Willhelm, Manfred, Oswald and Bruno would be good choices, surname would again probably be a posh one if he'd been a poet in those times, possibly titled too, so Von Hindenburg, Von Bayem, Von Reckendorff, Von Knapfstein. You could drop the Von from any of those too, and they'd still be pretty posh German surnames. One thing you ought to be aware of, that might have a bearing on your story, is that a great many theatres in London were closed down during WW2, since it was felt that they risked a massacre if a large gathering of people were hit in one place during the Blitz. This severely limited the number of plays and shows which were actually put on, and it's doubtful that a 21 year-old student would have been top of the list for staging her play at a major venue. The rule was relaxed later in the war to some extent, even though there was still the possibility of a V1 (doodlebug flying bomb), and later a V2 (ballistic missile) landing on London. To give you an idea of the risk, over 1,000 V2 missiles landed on London, and they killed over 8,000 people, so choosing a time setting after the 1940-41 blitz, but before the advent of the V1 and V2, might make sense. Al
Thank you everyone, that really helped. Al: that was very useful information, I think maybe I'll have to tweak my female character a bit more. I want her work to be very controversial to that day and age but for her not to be, as you said, world famous. She's still a struggling writer with financial difficulties so she goes to work with the the cantankerous German poet. But if she has financial problems then she can't be upper class and therefore not going to a university... unless her parents disowned her... (???) Sorry, rambling and brainstorming a bit here. Just one more question: for the German dude, if I were to use the name say.... Augustus Von Hindenburg how would I call him formally? Mr. von Hindenburg? Mr. Hindenburg? Does it matter? Again, thank ya'll for your help!
Two Character names that may work Lady 21 - Dorothy perhaps with the following term of enderment/nickname dotty, Gentleman - Konrad - believe it or not this modern sounding name was actually the name of the first german chancellor who was born -1876 and died 1967 so there is no doubt that name was around in the war. Do you need help with surnames? EL x
Thank you everyone, that really helped. Al: that was very useful information, I think maybe I'll have to tweak my female character a bit more. I want her work to be very controversial to that day and age but for her not to be, as you said, world famous. She's still a struggling writer with financial difficulties so she goes to work with the the cantankerous German poet. But if she has financial problems then she can't be upper class and therefore not going to a university... unless her parents disowned her... (???) Sorry, rambling and brainstorming a bit here.
Herr would be the typical formal address for a German gentleman. If you want your German dude to be a 'Von', that's typically (but not always) an aristocratic preposition, and if he is an esteemed poet, he may possibly have been elevated to the nobility. So he might very well be a Graf (equivalent to a Count, or Earl), perhaps a Baron or Freiherr (both of these essentially mean free lord, in that they are, or were, the owners of allodial lands, and therefore noblemen). Von is essentially 'from'. So in the case of a famous example, the Red Baron, aka Baron Manfred Freiherr Von Richthofen, his full name is essentially something like: 'Nobleman Manfred the landowner from Richthofen'. Al
K, so Graf von Hindenburg will probably work, since he's upper class as well. Thanks everyone for your help!
Im thinking Eileen for the woman And Luitger for the elder man Just seems appropriate to me, a bit random. But decent
