There’s nothing I love more than the beginning of creating a story. The allure of a lovely new idea. Turning it over in my mind like a puzzle box, looking for the way inside. Does this character connect with this one? No, false lead. How about this one? Oh…I like that. But where are they from? How will they get there? And how do I get inside this box?
And then, miraculously and from nowhere, the lid jumps up and all my questions are answered! I plan their childhood, their wedding, even their death, if I’m feeling tragic. Or I hate them (sometimes I hate them).
By then I usually hit my first hurdle: I have to name everything.
You’d be amazed how easily not having a name can throw you off a story, especially a new one you aren’t fully invested in. Sure, you can always slap a placeholder name on them, but finding the right name is important. If you’ve ever named a stray cat you never intended to keep, you know how powerful naming something is. Once you name something, you’re invested. And you generally can’t get the cat to answer to anything else afterwards…
It’s the same with characters, so finding the right name for them can really help the story move along. But how do you do that? Keeping a list of potential names around is a great start, even just jotting one or two down when you run across them on accident, but how do you go about finding the right name for your characters in the first place? I can’t give you a guaranteed working method, but here are my top five favorite ways I use to add names to my list.
Seriously. It sounds ridiculous, but this is my favorite way to come up with strange and unusual names! I’m a decent typist, but sometimes my fingers fumble and strange letter combos come out, like ‘scolwing’ instead of ‘scowling’ or ‘ostl’ instead of ‘lost’. Or was it ‘most’? Hm.
But sometimes misspellings have their own strange and unique sounds you just wouldn’t come up with on your own. They’re new. Different. And you can match that new-ness to a unique character. Ostl has such a strange and mysterious sound, that I gave it to a cartographer with strange and mysterious maps.
The downside of these names is that since you come across them by accident, once they’re forgotten, they’re gone, so you have to add them to your name list straight away so you can use them later.
You ever run across a name that just sounds like it’s from a certain cultural heritage? Like Brigitta sounds German or MacDonald screams Scottish? Cultures have their own names as well as variations of common names, like the English Mary, Spanish Maria, and French Marie. As a writer, you can use this to portray a culture, or a lookalike fantasy culture, in your books.
But you can also use this by having a certain meaning in mind first. ‘Charbonneau’ for instance, means charcoal or a person with dark hair or dark complexion. It’s also French, which I knew I wanted for my D&D style heroine, Aquilla. So I named her after her charcoal-colored hair. A variation on this is to name your character something that strongly reminds your readers of something in their world as well, such as ‘Aquilla’ itself.
Let’s face it, sometimes we only pick names because the nicknames sound really cool. I like Pips from Piper (or Pipsqueak or Pipes or half a dozen other Pippa Pippy sounding names). But some of the nicknames we give our friends, children, and family would be cruel to slap onto a birth certificate, even one from Fantasyworld General Hospital, so we chose a more conventional name for our hero’s real names. If you have a nickname already in mind, try running it through your search browser. Some names, like Elizabeth and Margaret, have been used so long and so often (even in the same family) that they have a dozen nicknames each. Easy.
I love hanging around to watch the end credits when I go to the movies. Maybe not for the whole scroll (unless there’s a cool extra scene at the end mind) but it’s definitely worth sticking around to read some of the strange and unusual names real people have. Especially the surnames. And these get bonus points in my book because they are names people use (or get stuck with).
If I see one I really like, or think will suit a character type I have in mind, I type it into my phone to add to my name list after I get home.
Yes, no surprises here. Name generators are useful tools for writers, but they’re also one of the most random methods by far. But with every name from every culture and then some under the sun at their disposal, they’ve definitely got bulk on their side. Unfortunately the random factor can mean you sort through a whole bunch of mismatches before you find your name, so it’s important you not only find your favorite generator, but a good one too!
Fantasynamegenerator.com is my favorite generating website for a whole slew of reasons. The first is definitely because they’ve got a generator for every fandom and mythic creature I could ever dream of, and a close second is that they have a vast collection of real world name generators as well. If you’re truly clueless of where to start, try them out and see how the random generations treat you.
Sometimes a name belongs to a character as soon as it enters your head. Sometimes it sits on your list for months before you realize who it is. I never have used every name on my list, but it’s a great place to start when I’m getting to know a new character. How about you? How do you get your characters to introduce themselves when they turn shy? Answer in the comments below.
