How important are characters' names to you?

[Smuttyandfun]

Though I agonize a bit over names, I'm not always happy. I've changed a few names when I realized that the name I'd picked didn't seem to work with the character once it was fully developed. Though I'm not even sure that the readers would notice or care, I like to pick names that I hope work with every character I've created.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Names are important, especially if you're writing something with a historical context. Calling a nurse born in 1880 'Trixie Boo Boo' isn't a good thing.

I also tend to use names that fit the character's presumed status and age.

 

[Devinter]

When I read other people's stories, I do not care one bit.

However, when writing my own, I choose the names with great care. I tend to use names that are quite uncommon for the most part. Furthermore, I never reuse a name. If you see the same name in two of my stories, they are probably the same character, just making the most subtle of cameo's or something. (I have done this multiple times, generally making the established character from a different story a very minor role in the new one just to keep things vague.)

I've used names that are exceptionally rare, like Alric, Amandus, Amoria, Aldrich.. And those are just the ones starting with A.

 

[Paul_Chance]

I don't invest to much time in names. I just try to find one that fits the character, or let the character tell me their name. In the latter case, it's my subconscious telling me the name for the character, since the way I conjure characters to life in my imagination involves selecting their name early in the process.

As a reader though - the right name for character makes the story flow in my imagination. The wrong name has the opposite influence and can detract from my enjoyment.

Specific to the fantasy genre, I do struggle with any name that I don't instantly know how to pronounce. It's about the flow. If you expect me to pronounce some weirdly spelled, multisyllable, with accent marks, name every time I run into it...well, that's not going to happen. However, if it's a brilliant character name, I can dig it.

 

[Voboy]

Very.

I like names that flow together. I enjoy coming up with them, especially in SF stories. Naming my peeps is one of the very first things I do.

 

[YDB95]

Usually my characters' names don't have any deep meaning beyond the fact that I like the names themselves (at least in the case of the good guys and gals).
One exception is Brand New Tennessee Waltz, where the names of the three people involved in the love triangle are an inside joke for any country music fans out there.

 

[Britva415]

I thought this could an interesting discussion.

We all hold conscious or unconscious connotations and preconceptions about names from our life experiences.

How much do names matter to you when you're reading or writing erotica?

When reading, I like, and when writing, I look for, the names with the least baggage based on my personal previous conditioning.

So in a way, names don't matter, but in a way, it matters that they're innocuous.

Beyond that:
It's very important that names are used consistently and don't change halfway through the story.
This goes for pronouns too, in the case of that story which switched from third person to first person halfway through for no reason and didn't get corrected with proofreading.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Certain women's names invoke a mental image for me. Diane for instance, feels elegant and sophisticated. Maggie sounds down-to-earth and hard-working. Lucy is bookish and shy. Emily is fun and a little weird. So I try to find a name that invokes the image of the character I'm creating, but it's really only important for me.

Male names I'm far less choosy about. I try to find a name that isn't common and forgettable (like Rob) but I don't go for names that seem trendy or exotic, like Logan, Jered, or Liam.

 

[ronde]

I sometimes use names I've already used in a different story, but I think names are important for a couple of reasons.

I believe that people either "become" their name, or change their name in some way to fit their personality. "Rebecca" is one personality type, but if she prefers to be known as "Becky", she did that for a reason.. It's the same way with male names. "Richard" is probably not your average party guy, but "Rick" or "Dick" might be.

People who insist upon being called by "Winston", "Harrison", "Veronica", or "Christianna" might be somewhat arrogant. If they have money, they're probably a lot arrogant.

People with biblical names like "Aaron", "Seth", "Mary", or "Ruth" probably grew up in a pretty conservative and religious family. They're likely to have the beliefs they were taught.

It's easy to tag a character as being from the South because they'll go by two names, like, "Billy Jack" or "Susie Jean".

As has already been said, names need to fit the time period of the story. There weren't any "Terry's" or "Roxy's" in the 17th century, just like you won't find many "Reuben's" or "Obadiah's" today.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Names are very important. Especially for main characters. In a deeper story they might even have an imbued meaning (Han Solo is a loner or a one-of-a-kind) but in a more down home tale the name still has to at least sound right for the character and the setting. A Victorian piece wouldn't have someone named Dylan nor someone named McKayla. A small town backwoods story will likely have Levi Arlene and Jeb.

I try to avoid names that are too common, or if I do settle on a common name then they may have a knickname or an uncommon last name to go with, or vice-versa. Mike Jones is way too generic, but Mikey Vitorelli or Oliver Jones usually is fine.

Sometimes I will slave over names. On a few occasions I have stopped writing for ten-fifteen minutes, maybe half-hour, until I can find the right name for some side character that will only be in two scenes.

Another note for me personally, I pretty much always need names for my main characters before I start writing. I've tried subbing in temp names so that I can get to writing until I can think of something more suitable but inevitably the temp name ends up sticking and I wind up disappointed. That's just me though.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

How much do names matter to you when you're reading or writing erotica?

When reading, I don't have any real preference for names, except that they set the tone. If I see the main character is called Sir Cumsalot then I am not expecting anything serious.

When writing, I just pick names at random, with only two rules. Firstly, nothing historically incongruous. Secondly, nothing unsexy or otherwise off-putting.

 

[AchtungNight]

My general rule is to have the name easy to remember, spell, and pronounce. Also clearly define the character in my mind. The Chinese FMC in Beijing Streakers was named Sun Shangxiang in the original source material, but I had issues spelling that, so I went back further in her family history and changed her name to Sun Ren. The ex-succubus in my Pathfinder story is named Arueshaelae, I shortened that to Arue for the same reasons. They’re still the same characters.

Funny enough, when I had to give Alicia Witt a generic jerk boyfriend in a couple stories, I ended up calling him Dave too. I didn’t mean offense to good people with the name, like alohadave and the founder of Wendy’s, the name just seemed to fit. And she didn’t stay in that toxic relationship long. Heh.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I like playing with names. Looking up the top 100 names from a region and year and picking one around number 20 is fun. But I'm rarely that wedded to a name - just as well given I had a lead FMC called Karen just as the meme hit, and had to change her name hurriedly! I have a couple background characters called Dave and a MMC David-not-Dave.



I do try to make it obvious whether a character is male or female, if not from the name, then in the text at the start. I recently started a story which might have been good, four characters bantering away, but after half a page I could tell we probably had two young men and two women, but had no idea which were which of Brooklyn, River, Chase and Taylor (or similar). And wasn't convinced any of them were old enough to be on Lit, though that's probably just me showing my age and such names being more recent round here.



My most recent story has someone nearing 50 exclaiming "I can't believe anyone called Jayden is old enough to fuck!" and being assured the man in question was named before the trend got going and is actually 27.

 

[Bamagan]

Most often, it's kind of an 'Oh fuck, I need a name' kind of thing. I do overuse some names across my stories, but, OK. Sue me.

No, you're Shelby Dawn, remember? Not Sue.

 

[Bamagan]

For names, I'm mostly looking to avoid too many of the same or similar ones across my stories, to avoid confusion for myself and possibly for readers who might assume some connection between stories based on the characters.
I also try to avoid naming characters after people I know, unless those people have names that are so common I know several of them.

 

[StillStunned]

I think some names conjure up an image in the reader's mind, so I'll try to avoid anything that feels wrong.

There have been a few times that I've put particular thought into my characters' names.

For The Rivals, I wanted fantasy/S&S names that sounded believable in a gritty world. Avilia is a play on the Latin avis, for "bird", because she flies around on a giant bird, and I wanted something a little different from "Avila". Sligh got his name because he's sly and a bit sleazy, and physically lean (but not quite "slight").

Another one I put a lot of thought into was Gan, from Ben's Big Mistake. She's half Thai, so Gan Jones. There's a clue in her name, though: according to several online dictionaries of names, "Gan" means "forceful". If the narrator in the story had been paying attention, his day might have turned out differently.

 

[ElectricBlue]

They matter. It’s a subconscious thing to me, but they inform the characters in subtle ways.

Yes, this. Names are essential to my characters, it's as if they have no identity until I name them. Many of my characters are inspired by real people, and I'll often use their real names. But just as often, I'll change a name - I have no rhyme nor reason for doing either. For my fictitious characters, the name usually arrives in my mind at the same time the character arrives in the story, it's as if they're conjured in my subconscious as a complete package.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I don't start writing until/unless I have character names devised that I think fit. (Of course, I often add characters as I write. When I do, I pause and search for the character name I think fits.)

I don't know about how important it would be to me in reading erotica--probably important if the names seemed well off the character, e.g., a Chinese name for someone who was supposed to be mainstream Philadelphia. I don't read much erotica.

Ditto, for the most part.

For me, the names are a critical part of the characterization. My story boarding begins with the names of my main characters. It has to consider the generational dynamics of the characters and the story itself. Names popular now versus the fifties or sixties could kill a story for knowledgeable readers.

Then there is consideration for how readers will perceive the character by their name alone. Will a "Percy" be perceived as being as strong and masculine as a "Pete" would be? Will the character(s) that develop in the story align with readers' perception of their name? Having a character named "William Foster Jr." in a story where his mother claims to not know who his father was stretches credibility IMO.

As a reader, I view character names much the same way. Does the name stir in me a preconceived idea of character traits? Having character names that are too similar (Jane/June, Will/Bill, Dennis/Denise) also turn me off as a reader.

 

[StillStunned]

I just did a quick count, and in 12 of my 25 published stories the narrator or POV character doesn't have a name. In a few, the secondary character doesn't either.

 

[Abbafan]

I'm neurotic and paranoid, so I avoid using names of people I know very well in the real world. Just because in the highly unlikely and embarrassing event that certain online activities are discovered, I don't want anyone drawing conclusions based on something I've written.

 

[Sinstories]

When reading, I don't have any real preference for names, except that they set the tone. If I see the main character is called Sir Cumsalot then I am not expecting anything serious.

When writing, I just pick names at random, with only two rules. Firstly, nothing historically incongruous. Secondly, nothing unsexy or otherwise off-putting.

^^ This^^

To me the important thing in naming a character is for the writer. If you have a preconceived notion about a name or it reminds you of someone in your life or past, that will impact how you develop the character. The name also becomes the character in my mind as I write. So it really doesn't matter what it is, to a point (Adolf and Matilda, a love story, may not work real well), once you pick the name, it becomes the character.

 

[elizaloo]

I often start with one name, and as the character evolves into who they are..I change it to 'fit' the person better.

As some have mentioned, I also tend to use common names (names of my younger years?) which may date me, rather than trendy names because I don't know too many Ashleeys or Austins or McKinleyeees in real life, so you won't see those names in my stories.

I'll haunt 'baby names of such and such year' to get a feel for what I consider 'good' character monikers.

 

[yowser]

Names are wonderful and can do a lot for a story: emphasize ethnic or cultural aspects, historical setting, regions. I always loved how some authors handled their characters' names in colorful or evocative ways: Dickens, Pynchon and Kingsolver come to mind.

About the only hard rule is not to give a character the Wrong Name. Anachronisms, a white boy named 'Demarcus', a name that doesn't fit or is jarring. Most of the time it's best if you don't have adjacent characters have similar names - a Linda and a Leigh in the same scene -since you don't want unnecessary confusion for your readers.

Nicknames can also go a long way, I had great fun in one story when I had a young buck's vaguely alarming girlfriend (with the given name of Rosalyn) prefer to be called 'Ripper' in public. Went with her tattooed body-landscape.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I just did a quick count, and in 12 of my 25 published stories the narrator or POV character doesn't have a name. In a few, the secondary character doesn't either.

This is really interesting. I don't think I've ever had someone left unnamed, partly because I favour third-person but also because my characters have a habit of saying each others' names quite a lot. One of my own personality traits that is just universally shared in my stories...

 

[pink_silk_glove]

This is really interesting. I don't think I've ever had someone left unnamed, partly because I favour third-person but also because my characters have a habit of saying each others' names quite a lot. One of my own personality traits that is just universally shared in my stories...

I actually have one story involving two unnamed characters. The story is short (5k) and the characters are purposely unnamed to maintain an air of mystery. For whatever it might be worth, it is my only red H. (shrug)