Name Trouble
- Thread starter Mamitt
- Start date
In school I had a friend named Sean who my other friend and I referred to exclusively as Johnny because when he introduced himself, he mumbledwe still call him that, even though we don't know each other very well anymore. Makes for funny comments on social media.
In college at orientation, in a group I didn't belong to at the time, one of my future friends decided that everyone there needed to have nicknames. So my soon-to-be-friend Natalie told him that they could call her anything, even Bianca. Another soon-to-be-friend spoke up for the first time, saying he would never call her anything else.
Fast-forward to a group of us walking together, and Natalie is the only person on campus other than my roommate whose name I have learned. But everyone's calling her Bianca. I was so confused. That nickname stuck for years.
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The issue with non-main characters' special/stand-out names is that they can distract from more important characters. So unless this is an important supporting character, sidekick, or love interest to the MC, or the MC has an even more flashy name, I'm not sure it's a good idea. Lisa will feel pretty invisible next to Trouble and Aragorn.
My favorite way to choose names, is to take the first culturally sensible name that comes to mind, ie. an Arabic name in Palestine, a Hebrew name on Israeli mainland, and a Japanese name in Japan.
Then I filter by pronounciability: for example by choosing Hebrew names that can be inflicted on an English-speaking audience - not Moran, for example, and not Lior, because then we would have the audience distracted with the hilarity of morons and liars.
Last, I pick a name for the main character that kind of describes him. Nothing huge, but for example, my current MC's name is Nadir which means "deeply loved/precious", and there are several meanings to that in the story. And I just realized, oh hell he really IS kind of a gender-bent Precious!!! *coughs* anyway...
But it's still a civilized-sounding name, nothing huge, nothing flashy.
Everyone else can be Joe for all I care if that's what comes to mind. It's how my cat ended up with the name Ravioli.
My favorite way to choose names, is to take the first culturally sensible name that comes to mind, ie. an Arabic name in Palestine, a Hebrew name on Israeli mainland, and a Japanese name in Japan.
Then I filter by pronounciability: for example by choosing Hebrew names that can be inflicted on an English-speaking audience - not Moran, for example, and not Lior, because then we would have the audience distracted with the hilarity of morons and liars.
Last, I pick a name for the main character that kind of describes him. Nothing huge, but for example, my current MC's name is Nadir which means "deeply loved/precious", and there are several meanings to that in the story. And I just realized, oh hell he really IS kind of a gender-bent Precious!!! *coughs* anyway...
But it's still a civilized-sounding name, nothing huge, nothing flashy.
Everyone else can be Joe for all I care if that's what comes to mind. It's how my cat ended up with the name Ravioli.
What if it's a last name and not a nickname? Some people hate their first names and sometimes last names stick better. I just did a White Pages search for Trouble in NYC. One hit. (Another one doesn't seem real.) There you go.
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Trouble sounds good. You can even have something like 'trub' . But I would keep trouble ( I never thought I would type that) if I really feel like it and there's a reason with which I agree