need 3 female and 4 male futuristic sounding names, maybe 400 years in the future, space travel is as common as seeing a prius in the san francisco bay area. humans are still the only sentient life in the universe as far as they're concerned. all 7 chars are soldiers, but i don't suppose that matters much since their parents didn't know what their professions would be at birth. any suggestions welcome. i'm horrible at naming chars. people are always like, "dude who wants to read a story about some guy named "Maynard?"
Names tend to stick around a long time, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you're going for a more believable story, just give them names that you'd see in the present time, occasionally changing the spelling if you feel like it (example: changing Jason to Jacen). I've seen/read/played countless books and movies and games taking place in futuristic settings where the characters had names like Alex, John, Ashley... and, of course, Luke and Ben. Not to discourage you from using unique names, of course. Just don't make them sound... high fantasy-ish.
first of all, your 'as common as seeing a prius in san fran' comment made me laugh Honestly, I think it depends a lot on how history/the future (history for your characters, the future for us) has played out in your story. Obviously, if societies are about the same and, as is most common, your leading society (or at least the one your chars are from) is pretty Western, you can stick with fairly normal, Western names. FMK is right; names stay around for a long time (think about how long names like John have been used. While your characters don't all have to have 'normal' names like that, chances are, unless there's been a huge change in society, some people will have those names). Give us a little more info, maybe? I think I'd need to know more about the world these people live in, etc. to make better suggestions Just don't overthink it, and do try to make them pronouncable... please?
Check out the way characters are named in Star Wars. If you look closely, almost all the names are modern names but words have been added to them or syllybuls taken away/added. Luke Skywalker = Luke Walker + Sky There's also plays on words Han Solo = cause he's a loner aka he's solo
I have a book that is set 300 years in the future and the main characters' names are Eric, Ian and Andrea. If the characters live on earth, you generally aren't going to get much of a change in names. Think back 400 years ago... the names were still pretty much the same. Like Pirates of the Caribbean: Will, Elizabeth, Jack. The timeless ones tend to stick around, with a few here and there that add themselves in to the timeless crowd. A great book for names is The Baby Name Wizard. I swear, I use it more for naming characters than any of my other 5 baby name books. Search for it on amazon and get it used. It classifies names as timeless, brisk and breezy, exotic, rare, surfer sixties, etc... It really helps me when I'm looking for a specific type of name. You might want to try it. Hope this helps. ~Natalie
Or you could try --> http://www.behindthename.com/ A baby name book is pretty much the easy way out, not that there's anything wrong with that.
It's not easy if you're as picky about names as I am and then go on to research the name on the web once you find it...
Thanks all, i guess i never relly thought about how timeless names can be. my name's "adam" for chrissake. lol
a cool idea might be a revamp of old fashioned names, you know like clothes do, come back into style, so you could use like Edwardian names or something. Like Grace, elizabeth, Edward, Samuel, florence, Thomas, that sort of thing, sorta old.
