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Character Names?

Most of the time my characters already have names when I begin writing. A sentence pops into my head which contains a name and I work from there. It just feels right and I go with it.

I'm writing a story set around the turn of the century {19th to 20th}. Some of the characters will be named after great aunts. Their names are perfect for the mood I want to create.

For my Six Characters story, I let them name themselves with some pretty interesting results.

All that being said, I loved Mistress Lynn's links and plan on doing a bit of browsing through some of those.
 
Unless I am writing about someone specific, I tend to pull mine right out of the white pages. Since I usually start with some idea of a character, some concept, when it comes time to naming, I just randomly flip through the white pages, selecting a first name and last name that fit the character. In rare instances the name will occur to me simultaneously with the character and so seems to come out of some deep recesses of memory.
 
STELLA is the name I use for my bat-shit crazy females. Otherwise I use the names of people I know OR I look at lists of popular names. For females of my generation I use names that were popular 50-60 years ago: Mary, Linda, Patty, Sue etc.
 
Stella_Omega said:
Back in the days when spam had sender names. *nods*
Click to expand...

The 419, lottery, and lonely-hearts scams still come with names, and that's most of what I get - although the spam is way down lately.

Stella_Omega said:
I used to have a file with hundreds of names from spam. For about a month they were all being generated from some source that had 'nature' words, so one of the names would be 'normal" and the other would be River, Robin, Hedge, Bluewater... Created a gorgeous allegorical atmosphere.
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For a while there the spammers were sending me random excerpts from old books as a way of tricking the filters. There was some good reading in there!
 
I have a collection of Baby Name books.

I have reduced it down to a single box that is just large enough for me to carry without back strain i.e about 35 lbs weight.

But I don't usually bother. I just use simple traditional names. I sometimes start with vanilla names and change them using search and replace once their characteristics get established.

I get some errors with search and replace, such as starting part way through a file and changing only part of the story, or missing apostrophes so that Jane gets changed and Jane's doesn't. :rolleyes:
 
I do what most everyone else does. First, I use names of people I see in the real world: friends, acquaintances, business contacts, clients, etc. (I absolutely avoid close family members and very close friends). When none of those suit my purposes I troll through news stories on the internet. My source of last resort is baby names websites.

The tricky part, as ML mentioned, is matching the name to the era in which the person was born. For characters close to my own age I rely heavily on the names of my classmates in school. For younger characters I will sometimes use names I read off the name tags worn by the junior cashiers at the supermarket.
 
I use the names of friends and sometimes more disreputable relatives.

The only real problem is when the story requires a full name. I run a google search to see how many people I am about to slander.
 
bronzeage said:
I use the names of friends and sometimes more disreputable relatives.

The only real problem is when the story requires a full name. I run a google search to see how many people I am about to slander.
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http://www.howmanyofme.com/ is a good website for that!

I try to use common names for the time and the culture. I don't use anybody close to me. I avoid stereotypical black names (eg Shanequa), but I do want to be accurate. Middle class families typically use traditional names, but lower class people get creative! That applies to both white and black children. FYI, if you ever need the last name for a black person, try Williams. Literally the most popular last name for African-Americans.
 
chocolatecookie3 said:
http://www.howmanyofme.com/ is a good website for that!

I try to use common names for the time and the culture. I don't use anybody close to me. I avoid stereotypical black names (eg Shanequa), but I do want to be accurate. Middle class families typically use traditional names, but lower class people get creative! That applies to both white and black children. FYI, if you ever need the last name for a black person, try Williams. Literally the most popular last name for African-Americans.
Click to expand...

I just checked my (real) surname.

"There are fewer than 1 with that name in the US."

I know that's not true.
 
chocolatecookie3 said:
http://www.howmanyofme.com/ is a good website for that!

I try to use common names for the time and the culture. I don't use anybody close to me. I avoid stereotypical black names (eg Shanequa), but I do want to be accurate. Middle class families typically use traditional names, but lower class people get creative! That applies to both white and black children. FYI, if you ever need the last name for a black person, try Williams. Literally the most popular last name for African-Americans.
Click to expand...

NEWSFLASH! Check the records. Ethnic names are popular. Lately there's some drift to names like AMBER, DAISY, ROSE, etc. But the ethnic appellations dominate. Whats awful are misspellings of ethnic names, one mom put DONATE (Dontae) on her babys birth certificate. I suspect that blacks realize that the fake names stigmatize their kids, and you cant conceal race on application forms when your kids name is SHANEQUA SHABAZZ BROWN.
 
Sometimes I find unique names of the people that come to my job. Sometimes they'll be ordinary names but spelled differently, it would be no concern to you in real life to meet Nichole, but since you're reading the name- it can reflect on the character. Nikol sounds like a cool chick. Mar-Koh, Sydni, Rae, Rayne, Kiva, Daena-Lynn Varren, or Jenny Faulk. The name helps develop who a character is and often their place in a story. Some random person at a party will probably be Rick or Some drunk guy. While the main character who's just out there, Such as Rayne Fallez is pretty cool and sez things like; "when I drive on that race track, I'm gonna leave'm in a drought. Why, cause the won't see Rayne!" My characters are not normal and niether is the city of Velocity, based on my town Louisville, ky.

You can have Jason and Patricia, I got Sonya, Ramona, and Lazurus, Marcelle and Blaize.
 
JAMESBJOHNSON said:
NEWSFLASH! Check the records. Ethnic names are popular. Lately there's some drift to names like AMBER, DAISY, ROSE, etc. But the ethnic appellations dominate. Whats awful are misspellings of ethnic names, one mom put DONATE (Dontae) on her babys birth certificate. I suspect that blacks realize that the fake names stigmatize their kids, and you cant conceal race on application forms when your kids name is SHANEQUA SHABAZZ BROWN.
Click to expand...

I do use ethnic names for blacks when the character is one who wouldn't give a shit that anyone knew they were black and generic James/Robert type names for black characters in families trying to meld in.
 
I just use names I like that I think suit the characters. Either it's something from memory or I have a baby name book which is fun to flick through
 
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