The Right Names For Characters

[NOIRTRASH]

Looking thru a long list of fictive cop names it seems none were ever called JACK FROST. My story is titled, OLD MAN WINTER, its about an older cop named Whatever Winter. Its a common surname. "Jack" oughta work. Maybe Jack F.

Do you invest much effort with character names?

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Do you invest much effort with character names?

I used to struggle with this. Then I realized it didn't matter and started hitting baby name lists. Some names are inside jokes between me and a fan; but mostly I keep it simple. I do pay a little attention to meanings of names; if I'm going to write a submissive female I'm probably not going to call her Cleopatra.

Last names I'll sometimes play with. I created Gladgrind as a deliberate echo of Dickens's Gradgrind. One minor character mentioned in passing got surnamed by a grammar school bully I strongly disliked. A character of mine who had the in-character freedom to pick own his last name chose El Santo, and the choice was very symbolic and will go straight over the heads of 99.9% of my readers. (I write for me.)

Mostly, though, Jane's as good as Judy. The name is not the thing.

 

[oggbashan]

I've said it before. I use vanilla names when I start writing a story and change them when the characters begin to take shape.

I have a small collection of baby name books from my time as a secondhand bookseller. Normally I only need one - A Concise Dictionary of First Names published by the Oxford University Press.

Character (and baby) names can date people. Names that were popular when I was born are unpopular now. From the 1960s onwards unique spellings and new names became less unusual. Now weird (to me) names are common.

But I have personal associations with particular female names. They are women I knew. Some I liked. Some I didn't. Any reader won't have my associations. They may well have different ones. If I call a character Helene that could trigger pleasant or unpleasant associations. I don't know what the reaction to a name might be.

One problem with starting with vanilla names and changing them later is that I might miss a change especially if I have made a typo. If I use Jean, and once type Jane in error that won't be picked up by Search/Replace. It can jar if a character suddenly changes name, or a name appears for no reason.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Dickens was the best at creating names.

 

[_Lynn_]

Before I start writing, I choose names. Even though I don't spend a lot of time on them, they have to fit the images, ages, and personalities of the characters.

 

[SimonDoom]

Dickens was the best at creating names.

Hands down. Nobody else is even close. And he had no baby name guides to help him. He just pulled them, somehow, out of his imagination. Dickens's genius is that he could invent names that suggested the qualities of the characters they were attached to while at the same time sounding like plausible English names. Copperfield, Murdstone, Pirrip, Heep, Dorritt, Steerforth, Scrooge . . . the list goes on.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Hands down. Nobody else is even close. And he had no baby name guides to help him. He just pulled them, somehow, out of his imagination. Dickens's genius is that he could invent names that suggested the qualities of the characters they were attached to while at the same time sounding like plausible English names. Copperfield, Murdstone, Pirrip, Heep, Dorritt, Steerforth, Scrooge . . . the list goes on.

And most are now cultural icons.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Dickens characters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dickensian_characters

 

[Carnal_Flower]

I think it makes a difference. Mary or Myra is not such a hot name as Kayla. Evan has a sweet connotation, Todd suggests strength. I don't think I'd ever use Fred.

 

[Paul_Chance]

I use a phone book (white pages). I randomly select names until I find the right combination of first and last names for a character. I jokingly refer to it as my infinite book of names.

 

[TxRad]

Some names come easy and some names come hard. Kind of like the characters.

 

[Paul_Chance]

Oh and FYI - TV program "A Touch of Frost" and novel series (I think four) featured a detective named Jack Frost. (Detective Inspector William Edward "Jack" Frost). I also think there was a companion BBC radio series.

 

[SamScribble]

Looking thru a long list of fictive cop names it seems none were ever called JACK FROST.

DI Jack Frost, James - RD Wingfield.

'DI Jack Frost is an unconventional policeman with sympathy for the underdog and an instinct for moral justice. Sloppy, disorganised and disrespectful, he attracts trouble like a magnet.'

 

[nikyc]

I've said it before. I use vanilla names when I start writing a story and change them when the characters begin to take shape.

I do this too, sometimes. Find a long list of names then I go to random.org and roll three numbers. Pick the one I like best of the three. Once the character has been established there's a 90% chance I'll change it.

Before I started doing that I could spend hours just coming up with names.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

When I started my Warrior series I struggled with names. The main protag I named Ezra after a name I had heard on some TV show. I used Nichols. For his ships chief engineer Irish, Connor MacDonald.

After that I thought the rest of the crew should be Irish also. I found a list of Irish names, in English and Gaelic and started using them. There are a few like Ezra who aren't Irish and hail from the North American Directorate instead the Irish Conglomerate. Most of the ships also have Irish names.

 

[rjordan]

Looking thru a long list of fictive cop names it seems none were ever called JACK FROST. My story is titled, OLD MAN WINTER, its about an older cop named Whatever Winter. Its a common surname. "Jack" oughta work. Maybe Jack F.

Do you invest much effort with character names?

A guy named Ray Hoy who was one of the first epublishers (The Fiction Works) in the world has a whole series based on Jack Frost. I didn't know Hoy, but a mutual friend gave me one of his books 30+ years ago about the Formula 1 circuit. I think it was Follow the Circus.

Not a cop, but some kind of adventurer who's always in trouble helping someone against the mob or helping someone in the mob or something. Never mind. He wasn't a cop.

rj

 

[JackLuis]

"He was a hard assed cop, he had been on the force forever and grown more cynical as the pimp and con-artists eroded his better nature. You may think you know cynical cops, but until you meet him, you don't know Jack Schlitz!"

Hows that Jimmy?

 

[NotWise]

I spent some time over the antagonist's name in a soon-to-be posted story. He is a particularly wicked character and his name is Angelito ("little Angel"). Angel is a fairly common man's name in Spanish but the word obviously has a different connotation in English.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

"He was a hard assed cop, he had been on the force forever and grown more cynical as the pimp and con-artists eroded his better nature. You may think you know cynical cops, but until you meet him, you don't know Jack Schlitz!"

Hows that Jimmy?

So you named him after a beer?

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Looking thru a long list of fictive cop names it seems none were ever called JACK FROST. My story is titled, OLD MAN WINTER, its about an older cop named Whatever Winter. Its a common surname. "Jack" oughta work. Maybe Jack F.

Do you invest much effort with character names?

Yes I do, especially main characters. I always try to find or make unique or uniquely spelt names. I believe that people equat names to an idea of how cool or lame a person may be especially when it comes to something seemingly one off.- that is just hearing it. When it comes to spelling or seeing a name, it can produce similar emotions, and since these are stories, it kinda plays to the imagination. For example; my 7year old son is named Zachary...but when we decided on the name, I picked the spelling Zackary. Sometimes it's hard, I find it easier naming cars I draw.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

A guy named Ray Hoy who was one of the first epublishers (The Fiction Works) in the world has a whole series based on Jack Frost. I didn't know Hoy, but a mutual friend gave me one of his books 30+ years ago about the Formula 1 circuit. I think it was Follow the Circus.

Not a cop, but some kind of adventurer who's always in trouble helping someone against the mob or helping someone in the mob or something. Never mind. He wasn't a cop.

rj

Thanks for the info. The WINTER part looks good to go, tho. Maybe JOHN F. WINTER, and people call him JACK.

 

[NicoleZ]

Names have to be vanilla or at least vanilla-flavoured WASP on Lit. If you don't believe me, just imagine what scores a story with the main protagonists named Adewele Adebadjo and Xabibo Sia Omitiwujo would attract...

Oh, by the way. I claim copyright on the name "Jaime Colon" who is set to feature prominently in one of the stories I'm working on.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Oh, by the way. I claim copyright on the name "Jaime Colon" who is set to feature prominently in one of the stories I'm working on.

Ja'mie: Private School Girl is already taken...

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/jamie-private-school-girl/

 

[rjordan]

Thanks for the info. The WINTER part looks good to go, tho. Maybe JOHN F. WINTER, and people call him JACK.

Jack F. Yea, you know he went through high school as "Jack Off".

rj

 

[rjordan]

I spent some time over the antagonist's name in a soon-to-be posted story. He is a particularly wicked character and his name is Angelito ("little Angel"). Angel is a fairly common man's name in Spanish but the word obviously has a different connotation in English.

Angel was one of my favorite characters in The Rockford Files. A two-bit hustler.

Some in this thread have said that names should fit the age, culture etc of the character, but intentionally ironic names are sometimes interesting in fiction.

rj