Character Names

[NOIRTRASH]

Which work best?

Is there a rule for it?

I just bought a collection of old stories, and the character names seem dorky. One is PETE PUTNAM. Wouldn't PETER CAPONE work better (a real dentist in Ohio).

 

[SusanJillParker]

Which work best?

Is there a rule for it?

I just bought a collection of old stories, and the character names seem dorky. One is PETE PUTNAM. Wouldn't PETER CAPONE work better (a real dentist in Ohio).

There's no formal rule for naming characters.

Sometimes I have my character's starting the story and other times, I change their names in the middle of the story.

It depends on your story, of course, but Peter Capone sounds too much like his distant relative, Al Capone.

What about Hank Molar, nicknamed, Yank Molar (lol)?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

There's no formal rule for naming characters.

Sometimes I have my character's starting the story and other times, I change their names in the middle of the story.

It depends on your story, of course, but Peter Capone sounds too much like his distant relative, Al Capone.

What about Hank Molar, nicknamed, Yank Molar (lol)?

I think Peter Cornpone will work. Tampas mob was called THE CRACKER MAFIA by the New York hoods.

 

[TxRad]

Should you fit the character to the name or the name to the character. Both work but which is best?

 

[oggbashan]

Should you fit the character to the name or the name to the character. Both work but which is best?

I try to fit the name to the character without stretching it too far (Except in the satire The Worst Chain Story Ever Ch. 01 when the male lead was John The Dong Shaw).

I use vanilla names Peter, Mary etc in the first draft and use find/replace to change them as the characters take shape and develop.

I have a large collection of baby name books which I can consult for ideas but I try to avoid surnames in my stories, or stick to common ones - Smith, Owens etc.

 

[TxRad]

I try to fit the name to the character without stretching it too far (Except in the satire The Worst Chain Story Ever Ch. 01 when the male lead was John The Dong Shaw).

I use vanilla names Peter, Mary etc in the first draft and use find/replace to change them as the characters take shape and develop.

I have a large collection of baby name books which I can consult for ideas but I try to avoid surnames in my stories, or stick to common ones - Smith, Owens etc.

Baby name books are a good source. On line is even better. You can search by year, country, region, any combination there of.

 

[Voboy]

Should you fit the character to the name or the name to the character. Both work but which is best?

In real life, names come before personalities. My characters work the same way. YMMV.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

My ma wanted an MD so she named me James Benjamin Johnson. Now all our MDs are named Leroy and Muhammad.

 

[Nezhul]

For me every name has a certain vibe to it. I generally choose names based on that - what suits my character better.

 

[Kimikimidoll]

So there is this program that cranks out 50-100 names, along with ages, addresses and other stuff. I'm sure it's used for more underhanded things but I like using it. You can choose the ethnicity and the rarity of the names too.
Or I just look around and write down a name starting with the first letter of that object.
'Hmm.. laundry? Liam!' Boom, name done.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Oh, I envy you writers working in the "real" world.

As a fantasy writer, I can't name my characters "Paul" or "Otto" (unless I go for a Medieval-European approach). My names need to fit not only the character's race, but their station as well.

My dark elves have a matriarchal theocracy, worshiping a divine spider. To make matters easy for me, I've decided to give noble dark elven women names derived from the latin descriptors for spider families. I've had one "Tarantula Horrifica" or "Deinopida Verda" etc. Once you have a certain pattern, you can play with it.

For other races I plunder the troves of exotic names and often parse them through anagrams for extra uniqueness. Makes it easy to find them and slap DMCA takedowns on the fools trying to steal my stories. I never thought I'd have to deal with that crap, seeing that I'm a small fry here on Lit.

 

[Kimikimidoll]

Oh, I envy you writers working in the "real" world.

As a fantasy writer, I can't name my characters "Paul" or "Otto" (unless I go for a Medieval-European approach). My names need to fit not only the character's race, but their station as well.

My dark elves have a matriarchal theocracy, worshiping a divine spider. To make matters easy for me, I've decided to give noble dark elven women names derived from the latin descriptors for spider families. I've had one "Tarantula Horrifica" or "Deinopida Verda" etc. Once you have a certain pattern, you can play with it.

For other races I plunder the troves of exotic names and often parse them through anagrams for extra uniqueness. Makes it easy to find them and slap DMCA takedowns on the fools trying to steal my stories. I never thought I'd have to deal with that crap, seeing that I'm a small fry here on Lit.

You know, in a world where everyone is named Vailmar and Ryhanath and Ne'rinne... Tom is pretty darn exotic. And so is Sue. I really admire Sue.

 

[Areala-chan]

For other races I plunder the troves of exotic names and often parse them through anagrams for extra uniqueness. Makes it easy to find them and slap DMCA takedowns on the fools trying to steal my stories. I never thought I'd have to deal with that crap, seeing that I'm a small fry here on Lit.

Sometimes I think being small fish means it's just more likely to happen. I had a piece here stolen, names stripped/replaced as 'Anna' and 'Elsa', and posted on another site as a Frozen fanfic. Never would have realized it if someone else from this site who had also read my story here first didn't contact me and let me know.

I was not pleased.

 

[TxRad]

You know, in a world where everyone is named Vailmar and Ryhanath and Ne'rinne... Tom is pretty darn exotic. And so is Sue. I really admire Sue.

Being a guy named Sue can be very exotic and make you famous. Just ask Johnny Cash.

 

[NicoleZ]

I think Peter Cornpone will work. Tampas mob was called THE CRACKER MAFIA by the New York hoods.

If you transpose the C and P, then do away with the N you end up with Porcone which I think may be Italian for "nurse":

"Porcone in calore si danno piacere!" = Nurses in heat will give pleasure. Very appropriate.

 

[sr71plt]

I usually go to baby name lists on the Internet by country and time period and choose names fitting my already-conceived characters and trying to make sure that the names can't be confused with each other and that it's not a name I've used before--or recently, at least.

 

[Haulover]

A writing course I took many years ago had excellent advice on name choice:

For your main character(s) : Always choose at least 2 syllables for the first name, and just one for the last name. (E.g. Michael Jones)

It helps if the first name can be abbreviated, preferably in more than one way. (E.g. Mike Jones, Mikey, Jones, etc.)

That gives you several ways to refer to your character, depending on context. Examples:
- "Dammit, Jones!", or
- "I love you, Mikey", or
- "Yo, Mike, wassup?" or
- "Seriously, Michael, we have to talk" or
- "Don't ever call me 'Mickey' again!"

Etc...

That provides the writer with a lot of flexibility, and the ability to mention the character's name without necessarily repeating the same word quite as many times.

My wife's name is Deborah. My stories refer to her as Deb, Debbie, or Deborah...

 

[NOIRTRASH]

If you transpose the C and P, then do away with the N you end up with Porcone which I think may be Italian for "nurse":

"Porcone in calore si danno piacere!" = Nurses in heat will give pleasure. Very appropriate.

Or I might go with TALIAFERRO, one of my ancestral lines. They came from Venice via London, and the name is pronounced TOLLIVER, which stuns all my Italian friends who know Italian. TALIAFERRO is a street thru Tampa, we were sinless bankers long ago when all knew how to say the name right, but now every tv reporter calls the street TAL EEE UH PHAROAH. Like it was eye tal yun. But I say, if girls can be boys, and boys can be girls, Taliaferro can be Taliaferro.

 

[NicoleZ]

Or I might go with TALIAFERRO, one of my ancestral lines. They came from Venice via London, and the name is pronounced TOLLIVER, which stuns all my Italian friends who know Italian. TALIAFERRO is a street thru Tampa, we were sinless bankers long ago when all knew how to say the name right, but now every tv reporter calls the street TAL EEE UH PHAROAH. Like it was eye tal yun. But I say, if girls can be boys, and boys can be girls, Taliaferro can be Taliaferro.

Very nice, and there you have yet another character name incidentally; Thalia Ferro (variants Nathalia, Athalia).

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hmmm....character names.

I took a poll of tv shows I watch(ed) and the most common name, first or last was Carter. The next was Jack or John. After that it's all kind of random and all over the place. Now women...Abigail seems to be popular on one show. They have two or them. Others, they are spread out through the spectrum of names for women.

As for my stuff...

I have one series were all the names, except a few, are old Irish names...

Samuel Carlson, Michael Flannery
Gobán Ó Ciaráin, Scolaí Dillon
Moshe Byers, Molly Vaughan, Egan Dwyer, Carol Ryan, Brennan Maguire, Caughey Abbán, Maolán
Phinias Beckett, Sean O’Connor, Teague Kinsella, Beccán Boethius, Ólchobar Mac Aodhagáin, Keeva
Connor MacDonald , Eric Nolan, Tara Morrissey, Quinlan, Kevea Scully, Alastar Quinn, Áinle Ó Daire,
Ezra Nichols, Fina Dugan, Ossian Kavanagh, Ronan Pierce, Bridget Brogan, Donal Carey, Mealla
Milford Cook, Kaylee Lowery, Brianna Adair
Lonan Fitzgerald, Tóla Shanna(f), Éilís Grady(f)
Pádraigín Blake

And the lead in the series is Ezra Nichols. No he's not Irish, he's American. One of only a few.

 

[_Lynn_]

I choose names based on the age and personality of the character. If I can't come up with one I like, I check the websites offering name generators.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I tried a few times to change up my characters names, but then I get confused as to who is who, or is it whom is whom? Anyway so now it's always Mara and Eddie as my couple, Amanda is her friend and Spencer is his. If she has a brother that is Tim, her sister is Natalie.

I changed it up in my Serendipity story and that confused me so much!So now it's always the same.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I tried a few times to change up my characters names, but then I get confused as to who is who, or is it whom is whom? Anyway so now it's always Mara and Eddie as my couple, Amanda is her friend and Spencer is his. If she has a brother that is Tim, her sister is Natalie.

I changed it up in my Serendipity story and that confused me so much!So now it's always the same.

Character sheets. They help you keep track of who's who.

And although I use them, I sometimes fall back on the characters I know so well. John, Jenny, Michelle, Susan, Mark and George.

 

[oggbashan]

Character sheets. They help you keep track of who's who.

And although I use them, I sometimes fall back on the characters I know so well. John, Jenny, Michelle, Susan, Mark and George.

I tend to use very few characters. A small post-it note is enough.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

Character sheets. They help you keep track of who's who.

And although I use them, I sometimes fall back on the characters I know so well. John, Jenny, Michelle, Susan, Mark and George.

I think it's some of that too, I know these characters, I like them, and I just want to keep writing about the same people putting them in new scenarios.