McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Character Names

<< < (3/6) > >>

Nimarkiva:
I myself look for words that I've misspelled while writing something, and write them down for further changes as I work on one of my other projects. I write mainly science fiction and fantasy, so normal names are whatever comes to mind. The other ones......heh. Try randomly making sounds in the back of your throat, or saying things several times fast. You'd be amazed with what you come up with. There is also writing a name which looks weird but sounds normal. That is quite fun to do, depending on the character.

LizW65:
This is one aspect of writing (just about the only one) that has never been a problem for me.  Interesting names frequently pop into my head at random moments and begin shouting at me in their various voices to tell their stories.  I've heard that Charles Dickens used to take long walks around London, collecting interesting and unusual names of people, and writing them down in a notebook for future reference. 
A good source of inspiration for me is street signs.  Several years ago I was driving to Cape Cod when I spotted a highway sign that read Marion/Rochester.  Wow!  What a great name for a character!  I've never actually done anything with Marion Rochester, but she's still there in my head, waiting for the right story to come along.  Maybe she's the crime-solving headmistress of a girls' school out on the Cape.  And then there's Levita Spafford, cobbled together out of a couple of contiguous street signs.  She's the alcoholic matriarch of a dysfunctional family somewhere in the deep South.
Even the phone book or caller ID can be a helpful resource.  Good luck!

Mickey Finn:
" For one thing, I wouldn't have named that character Robert Frost anyway if I'd thought about it for another five seconds or so because his main magic is based on fire. "

Actually, having a fire-magician named Frost sounds good. ;)

Names normally just come to me (or I stumble across something that would work beautifully, like Grady Niblo Rd outside of Dallas). Sometimes, they're homages and injokes (like changing the protagonist's name to Ellison in my first published story).

Maybe on the Cogni boards, we'll play a name game where I toss out a few names, and people write a random story where the names influsence the characters they create.

pathele:
Coming up with names has always been difficult for me, even back in the RPG days.  I would want the name to say something about the character, but not be easily made fun of (yes, my college friends were 3 and made fun of characters names)
From that, I got to where I would come up with something that was usable, but may not be permanate.  I went through several changes before my current main character, Brodie Hollister, got a name that felt right for him.
I think it takes time and some luck to finally find the one that fits.

-paul

Wolfeyes:
Coming up with names I find just varies from person to person. Sometimes you can easily come up with names that fit certain characters (like I have a character that's supposed to be an assistant and even though his name is "Gilbert" the name "Doc" became his nickname) but sometimes when it's an important charaacter I find it's better to find something that fits maybe a meaning or reflects them (at least that's how I see it). For example, my heroine's name was going to be Nisha (since it has to do with the night) but that was only because my male lead's name was supposed to be her opposite in meaning since the two characters were meant to contrast but since it didn't go over to well and the hero's name became Draven Maxwell "Nisha" just naturally became Shamara Grey (Shamara is arabic for "Ready for battle"). Since Shamara's name was that and fit a character another character that was supposed to become a parallel/copy from Shamara I named Xiomara since it sounds similar and has the same meaning but in Spanish.

And if I find myself stuck on a name for characters like I was my two other leads I usually look up babynames online for meaings/names that I think suit them and usually get something I like and flows. Like Tylia (derives from "Otylia" which means "Lucky") Parker or Hilliard ("Guardian of battle) Utara.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page