I honestly think one of the hardest parts of writting is coming up with a name. You can make the greatest character ever but if their name falls short, then well... So this is a two part thread. First part I will give some tips on how to create names. And in the second I would like some tips you use on creating names and deciding what names are good for certain characters. The main purpose of this thread is I see way too often, "Just use this name generator." I particularly don't like using them. Ever. I am never satisfied and I would put down money and say that a human being can come up with beter names than a program. So please, no name generator advertising. We all know they exist Okay so here's some tips on what I do. First, i start out with the character in my head (duh) Ok what kind of character is he/she. Is he a good guy? Is he evil? Usually the allignment of good and evil will determine a characters name. Like in LOTR, I'm pretty sure the Shire was called the Shire and not Mordor for a reason. I also then think about the character's origins. Even though the story may be 100% geographically unrelated to earth, you can still base your characters off already existing cultures. So take for example in my story I am working on, a lot of my characters are based off of old Nordic mythology and I wanted them to have more of a Norwegian sound to it. So I looked up popular Norwegian names and noticed how a lot of them ended and began. i noticed some letters were more exclusive to girls than boys. Also, look at actually Norwegian words. I listen to lots of black metal (from Norway) so i look at the bands' lyrics and see how the words look. By doing all of this, I came up with some interesting names like Fiørsk, Førtislåv, Hrudden, Krej, Enzull, Ajåkett. And notice how I put in the accent marks. It really helps but don't go overboard. I hate when I am reading a fantasy story and the places and people have the most riddiculous names and peoplpe tend to over uses apostrophes. Also, try taking real words and breaking them apart to make a name. Latin is the easiest imo. Like I had a character who would become a cruel and malevolent tyrant. I named him Attem Sceptriox. The entire name is made from broken up latin words meaning cruel, sinister, tyrant, and stuff like that. You can make your names have meaning and not just oh hey this sounds cool! And also I think that Arabic/Egyptian/Middle Eastern names are fun to make up. You can come up with names like Harufashan, Sevatti, Akktemin, etc. They use a lot of u,a,k/q, and s. And I jsut made those off the top of my head. See its easy! Alright so what are some of your tips? And if you don't mind me asking, I am having trouble coming up with names in my novel series. I need names for Gods and cities. Got any sugguestions? I am completley open. I hope this short guide helped any of you that are struggling.
I think it's important even in a fantasy or sci-fi story to have a name people can actually pronounce. (and to be quite honest those names doesn't sound very norwegian to me, but then again, if something at all they sound like they would belong to someone from iceland... just beware of them being able to pronounce, because it's hard to relate to a character if you can't even figure out how their names are supposed to sound.)
Thanks for the advice, and yeah I tried not to go overboard to make them unpronouncable (thats probably not a word lol) but i still wanted them to be cool. And maybe they don't sound completley norwegian but I just wanted it to sound foreign from a more northen country, ie Norway so icelandic should work too XD
