I am about to start writing a story, I know what I want it to be about and where it is going to be set, right now I am working on my characters. One of the characters is an 8 year old girl. She has alabaster skin with rosy cheeks, long onyx black ringlets and icy blue eyes. Others perceive her as beautiful, cute, doll-like. She is a gifted child with a genius IQ, she is straight A student, loves to draw, read, can sing, play the piano and dance (takes lessons in ballet, jazz and tap). I am struggling with what should I name her. Which name do you think would suit her?
What name do you like? Chances are, when her parents named her, she didn't have all these characteristics, so she would just have a regular name—not one based on her looks or accomplishments. If you're not sure, see if you can get hold of a list of baby girl names and see which ones appeal to you. You're going to be living with this character a while, so make sure you like what you choose. And here's the good news! If you change your mind, unless you've based part of your plot on her name, you can change it at any time before you start sending out query letters or self-publishing.
I agree with jannert. The question isn't who the girl is, the question is who her parents are. If they're conservative Christians, they'll go with Biblical names. If they're fomer hippies, they'll go with names like Peaches. If they're modern, middle class young parents, they might go with names like Ray or Greta. If they're Japanese, they'll pick a Japanese name. And so on...
Agree 100% with the advice above. Her parent's background (ethnicity, social class, etc.) will influence what they would have named her, as well as the time period of when she was born. Googling top baby names for [year your character was born] can help to determine if your character's name is realistic. There weren't a whole bunch of kids named Kayliegh or Brayden in the 1920's, for example. I would warn you against something that blatantly reflects her looks, like Raven or Ebony - as a reader I would be rolling my eyes a bit at something along those lines.
Aside from the good naming advice above, I'm also noticing a bit of descriptive over-writing coming through on your character description. To me, that is a sign that you story of novel contains a lot of that sort of writing, which at worst (I'm talking about you "rosy cheeks" and "icy blue eye") are horrendously cliche, and at best are somewhat boring. You don't need to fine tune every detail about a person's appearance. Let the reactionary nature and responses of other characters form it, along with the reader. The reader can do a lot on their own. But most of all, don't induce an eye-roll with a telling name towards the plot or their looks.
It's It the main character Or a side character? Active or passive. Sometimes a character's name can reflect their roll in the story. It doesn't have to be blatant. but I suggest looking up real-life people, characters in folklore or gods snd goddesses that reflect your character and one might pop out to you. My MC is called 'Isidore' because his roll in the story is his relevance to 'Words' Isidore of Seville was a saint that studied the origin of words and his name just had a nice ring to it and seemed to be relivant to the charaicter Hope that helps
