best way to come up with character names?

[innocencebegone]

Norweigen? Scandinavian heritage..any suggestions?

 

[Tx Tall Tales]

Google top 100 norwegian names. Here's one I found.

http://www.babynamestats.com/top-names-norway-2009.html

If you have a certain age in mind, you can often google the name and birth year. I used the phrase 'most popular norwegian baby names 1994'

http://www.baby2see.com/names/boysnames_norway.html
http://www.baby2see.com/names/girlsnames_norway.html

These lists have the 10 most popular names for boy and girls, in Norway, since 1880.

Hope that helps

 

[hylas_]

All Scandinavian characters should always be called "Gunnar".

 

[nightlola]

The best way to come up with a character name is to finish writing the story. It'll come to you.

 

[MSTarot]

I use the phone book to look for names. just leaf through till you find something you like. Also there are always Jones and Smiths in most countries of Europe.

While it looks a bit out of place to have someone named Yorin Smith, it is accurate.

 

[_Lynn_]

This link has a category for Norwegian and Scandinavian names. Scroll down the page. Click the one you like and another page opens filled with options.

 

[NymphWriter]

Character Names

If I don't already have a name in my head, then I'll do a search for baby name and look over the list until I see one that catches my eye. I know some say the name is supposed to mean something... but sometimes... the name is just the one that pops into my head.

 

[Lady_Riane]

What about taking a name you know you like and then looking to see if there is an equivalent one in the language of choice.

Michael - Miguel
Alexander - Aleksandr
Jacob - Yacob

You get the idea.

 

[MausAss]

One female swedish name is Fanny. Use that one.

 

[Aurantica]

I often use a random identity generator. All you do if put in a few details like gender and country of origin, and it gives you a full profile.

 

[LustreMunky]

literotica sign up captchas

 

[Hypoxia]

I often use a random identity generator. All you do if put in a few details like gender and country of origin, and it gives you a full profile.

A "random identity generator" ?? Oh shit. Now I'll have to use those.

 

[FyreHarpie]

OH so much fun!

A "random identity generator" ?? Oh shit. Now I'll have to use those.

I definitely agree with that! I am already looking it up and seeing what sites I can find to do this with!

 

[TamLin01]

Randomly selected names always feel flimsy and disposable to me, and sometimes so too do the characters they're attached to. I say pick a word, a theme, or an idea that's relevant to the character and then search for a name of the appropriate extraction with a relationship to that theme. It's a little work, but I find names will "stick" a lot better this way.

 

[Sammael Bard]

When I was a kid, we used to play a PC game called '7 Kingdoms'.

9 races (earlier it was 7)- Norman, Viking, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Persian, Egyptian, Mughal and Mayan.

Each and every person's name is randomly generated, according to their nationality, by an inbuilt programme.

Now, I use it to name the side characters in my story.

 

[Hypoxia]

When I was a kid, we used to play a PC game called '7 Kingdoms'.

9 races (earlier it was 7)- Norman, Viking, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Persian, Egyptian, Mughal and Mayan.

Each and every person's name is randomly generated, according to their nationality, by an inbuilt programme.

Now, I use it to name the side characters in my story.

Sounds like an excellent tool. Hmmm, some clever programmer could/should write a name/identity-generating app that resides besides word procs. Hit CTRL+F2 to pop it up.

 

[Sammael Bard]

Sounds like an excellent tool. Hmmm, some clever programmer could/should write a name/identity-generating app that resides besides word procs. Hit CTRL+F2 to pop it up.

I'm not a comp wiz so can you please elaborate on where I should press that and what should I expect on my screen?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Sounds like an excellent tool. Hmmm, some clever programmer could/should write a name/identity-generating app that resides besides word procs. Hit CTRL+F2 to pop it up.

Scrivener has this. I can press a button and get a list of fifty randomly-generated names; I can set what lists to include (e.g. "Common US first names"), allow or disallow double-barreled surnames and I can even tweak the obscurity settings - e.g. low obscurity gives me some pretty bland names:

Sarah Marshall
Kevin Smith
John Roberts
Michael Parry
Emily Berry
Laura Ross
Melissa Mitchell
Julie Armstrong
Thomas MacDonald

Max obscurity gives me something more adventurous:

Jim Lawal
Karie Neill
Errol Sharrocks
Shana Willington
Margarita Lawton
Shawanda Sawden
Nathan Saville
William Jeffries
Natasha Bently
Carlos Churne

I'd be cautious of using it for unfamiliar cultures; some elements might be common on their own but implausible when combined. For example, "Kaur" is a common last name for Indian women (in particular Sikh) but unusual for men. And some names may have unintended religious/social implications.

 

[49greg]

I did a huge list of names not long after I started posting stories here, a column of first names on one side and a column of last names on the other side. Just all the names I could think of. Mostly just plain anglo-american names. The plan was to randomly chose a last name and a first name and go with that.

I haven't used it once.

Many of the name's I use are from friends and acquaintances in my childhood, high school, army and later. Usually I use one person's first name with another's last name. Names in my story (that shall never see the light of day) I wrote for last November's NaNoWriMo were nearly all taken from a site with Cornish names.

A series of stories, some posted, that take place in a mythical Northern Iowa town full of the descendants of Norwegian settles are from the phone book. Which worked because I happen to live in Northern Iowa in an area full of the descendants of settlers who originally came mostly from Norway, with some Swedes and Danes.

 

[Walnut7218]

I'd try babynames.com or babynameguide.com. I always use these sites to find character names. Nameberry.com might work as well.

 

[spellslave]

I use Behindthename/Behindthesurname. I also look into the root origins of the words, and occasionally use Wikitionary as well.

 

[tomlitilia]

A little OT perhaps, but I find it's easier to write the story without names, using codes like F1, F2 etc for females and M1, M2... for males (I think up to M6 in a group sex story once). I find it easier to keep track of characters that way, and it also avoids getting character descriptions distracted by people I know with a specific name. When the story is at least nearly complete, I use find/replace to try out names that works for the characters as they have developed. Sometimes I give the main character a name early on, and use the code system for the rest.

 

[Halen]

Google top 100 norwegian names. Here's one I found.

http://www.babynamestats.com/top-names-norway-2009.html

If you have a certain age in mind, you can often google the name and birth year. I used the phrase 'most popular norwegian baby names 1994'

http://www.baby2see.com/names/boysnames_norway.html
http://www.baby2see.com/names/girlsnames_norway.html

These lists have the 10 most popular names for boy and girls, in Norway, since 1880.

Hope that helps

Thank God this is not how Actual writing is done. (Good Evening Jon good evening John how are you dr smith just fine mr smith.. limited names every time to the top 10

 

[oggbashan]

I have a collection of baby name books left over from when I owned a secondhand bookshop. Everytime I found a baby name book in a pile of puchased books I added it to the box for them.

When I closed the shop I sorted through the box (which had grown to three boxes) and kept one copy of each. I gave some of the rest to our local ante-natal clinic, and the balance to a charity bookshop.

The baby name books are from various eras but usually 1970s - 2000, and from several countries including France and India.

BUT - I usually start writing my stories with 'vanilla' names and only change the name after the character has begun to develop. I use Word's 'find and replace' but that isn't wholly reliable. In one story I had the Indian name Reshed but I changed it to Reshad. Find and replace changed the word 'threshed' to 'thReshad' and I didn't notice.

 

[tomlitilia]

In one story I had the Indian name Reshed but I changed it to Reshad. Find and replace changed the word 'threshed' to 'thReshad' and I didn't notice.

That's exactly why I use codes like F1, F2 etc. Very few words have numbers in them