Creating names

When I'm thinking of character names I just use whatever comes off the top of my head. Sometimes I give meaning to a last name but I don't really go into actual meaning. It's just like that to help me remember. If someone looks up the last name then yeah they will realize that Emma Zhi is a doctor and her last name means doctor or healer.

Place names I take more care because hey they can actually mean something and be considered cheesy. One important place in my novel is called the rift not only because of the earthquake that caused the earth to rip apart but also because it split the group up into seperate groups and they were never able to rejoin each other. Families and friends were seperated because of this event. So the name has a double meaning.

As Victoria Strauss pointed out before her post was lost to the "great Migration of 2005", the names in Star Wars aren't so great or consistent. Luke and Leia? Twins with two completely different types of names? And the Sith? Cheesy, cheesy, cheesy. Darth Plagus, Darth Sidious, Darth Maul, Darth Tyrannus, and Darth Vader--all badly realized corruptions of words that resonate with evil. And there's no name worse than Newt Gunray, the evil vice-roy of the trade federation (hello, raygun?). I may have spelled Newt wrong.

Now, Tolkien, there's some brilliance in names. All carefully crafted and based on fantasticly developed linguistic models.

In my fantasy novels I've had characters names such as: Tolian, Rwiordes, Brythia, Findelbris, Pagyrus, Perelisk, and Krin Gul. In my WIP, which takes place in the present: Joey and Claire are my main characters.

bluejester12 said:

When you create names for characters and places, do you use any guidelines to make them sound part of the same world? For example, names like Frodo, Gandalf, Saruman sound like they come from the same world. Obi Wan Kenobi, Lando, Han Solo--if I had world with two guys name Joe and Perseus, wouldn't fit.

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It might fit if Joe is short for Josephus.

But not being a linguist, if I write a fantasy work I'll probably play it safe and go with English, German, and French names for people from different areas.

bluejester12 said:

I dont see whats wrong with Luke and Leia. I do have a problem with them being twins

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Aren't Luke and Leia a bit like Joe and Perseus, though? And why does everybody but Luke have a spacey name? And does Skywalker really fit as a last name when nobody else's name is English? Look, I love Star Wars, and the names aren't that big of a problem for me, but I can't consider them as good science fiction or fantasy names. I do take your point about the pulp influence, though.

I go with the first thing that occurs to me most of the time, but sometimes, especially when it's a foreign name, I'll pick it out of a book I'm reading (esp. non-fiction) or I'll find it on the web in one of those baby name sites.

I've got two name books I keep by my computer. One is The Baby Name Wizard by Laura Wattenberg, which I just got a few months ago and love, and the other is Leslie Dunkling's The Guinness Book of Names. The former is good for first names, the latter for any other kind of name (last names, place names, etc.). And when I'm stuck in my writing, they're both fun to browse.

I totally agree with Diana H. about the names in Star Wars! My cousin and I wrote (watch for it--incredibly obvious plug) goofy parodies of episodes I, II, and III, and we had fun with the names in Episode III. Darth Cropfailure, anyone?

I do like the main character's name in any work to be more accessible than others necessarily are. Perhaps that's why we get Luke instead of something more exotic. I have a WIP (on the back burner at the moment, and possibly forever) set in the far future with intelligent reptilian creatures as characters rather than humans. The characters all have made-up names except the main character, whom I've named Drake.

Diana Hignutt said:

Aren't Luke and Leia a bit like Joe and Perseus, though? And why does everybody but Luke have a spacey name? And does Skywalker really fit as a last name when nobody else's name is English?

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Well, his original name was Mace Windu. Thank goodness Lucas...

...oh.

Baby name books and search engines (like http://www.babynames.com/ are invaluable to me. I can pick a nationality, like making everything sound Greek, take a rare name and change it around a little, or with the search engines, search by meaning. I like a little irony, such as an evil cult leader with a name that means "wisdom."

I saw something once which gave the formula for figuring out what your Star Wars name would be. I don't remember the whole thing, but I think it included using syllables from the last over the counter drug you took. Agreed, the Sith names are ridiculous, but since they seem to be names bestowed later in life I don't object to them too much. Can you imagine a parent naming their child "Sidious"?

In my fantasy WIP I've got a combination of names from different cultures. My main source is baby name books which have lots of alternate spellings. A couple of names were chosen based on the meaning, and a couple of names probably should be changed but I've grown so attached to them it would be difficult. Some of the names I've chosen are simple on the surface, but I've made them abbreviations of more complex names (for example Marvin, short for Marvinistral).

http://blogthings.com/starwarsname/ is a link to a "find your Star Wars name" generator. Very amusing.

I make sure people's names match linguistically based on where they are from. In my head I decide, "this country's language is rather like X language," and so the names roughly follow the sounds of that language (though I occasionally substitute consonants or vowels that aren't used in the actual Earth language, just because, well, it's not the same language). I make sure, though, that in my head I know what language the word or name comes from, and what alphabet it uses, and how it tends to combine consontants and vowels.

Examples of "families" of proper names in my world:

Tioria
Tior Vaal
Keofino
Noriel

Shahri-Alath
Yorah Ashaam-Iri
Tihara Sil'Ashaam

Kyreth
Aleksi
Ath
Shay
Tau
Khannoth
Mehrit
Ul-Khayum

Respectively, those are loosely based on Latin/Italian, Arabic, and Ancient Egyptian.

I think, as a fantasy writer, if you're not born a linguophile (as I was) you sort of eventually become one

You might want to check this page at URL http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html for some name ideas as to how frequently they were used if you're putting a story in a recent time period. When you enter a name, be sure to track across the colored band to see different decades.

Well my new approach, and I have yet to see if it is fruitful, so do take it with a grain of salt is to make clusters. That is document the first names that come to mind when thinking of a specific group or culture and then generating names that seem to intuitively fit in that area.

I'll let you all know how it works out.

DaveKuzminski said:

You might want to check this page at URL http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html for some name ideas as to how frequently they were used if you're putting a story in a recent time period. When you enter a name, be sure to track across the colored band to see different decades.

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That's a good toy to kill a little time with.

I found the most interesting part to look up presidential names - most corresponded to a peak in baby names while in or immediately after leaving office. Woodrow, Taft, Garfield, Cleveland, Theodore, Franklin, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Lyndon.

On a comical side, there were a disturbing amount of Dicks in the 1930s. I should know - I have an uncle who is a Dick.

I usually like to start my characters based on the people that I know, so I usually just use their names for a while.


Then, I spell them backwards, re-arrange a letter here or there, and go nuts with it until it all gels.

Say you base your two characters on your two buddies Dave Kuzminski and Badducky.
Evad Iksnimzuk, and Ykcuddab are what you get backwards. Since this is almost illegible, clean it up, and play with it, a little.

Evad Nimsuk. Dack Yudab.

Or, say you have a character that is a bit of a mulligan and serves only one purpose. You need a character -- as I did -- to serve as the muse to which the narrator writes her letters. This mulligan character was named "Esumi", or "I muse" spelled backwards.

I also think it's important to bear in mind that there's nothing worse than a character whose name is so obtuse with syllables and hyphens and obvious meanings that the reader has trouble reading it. Remember that complaint of the people who hate Russian literature?

If you're going to do something strange, like I do, try to keep the syllables short.

Also, and especially in cases of cool fantasy weirdness, make sure each character has a different first letter of their name. This limits confusion.

badducky said:

I usually like to start my characters based on the people that I know, so I usually just use their names for a while.

Then, I spell them backwards, re-arrange a letter here or there, and go nuts with it until it all gels.

Say you base your two characters on your two buddies Dave Kuzminski and Badducky.
Evad Iksnimzuk, and Ykcuddab are what you get backwards. Since this is almost illegible, clean it up, and play with it, a little.

Evad Nimsuk. Dack Yudab.

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Actually, I'm already using the names spelled backwards idea, but not just for the purpose of coming up with something unique. It's also a good way to make your work searchable should some of it be misappropriated on the Internet. Yes, I know scammers don't know how to get manuscripts published, but that doesn't mean there aren't people who will use your work without permission. Happens in fanfic a lot. Anyway, if you use your own name or a portion of it to create a unique character name, you can use that to trace if your work is being posted illegally anywhere on the web. Yes, in one book, I have a wizard named Nimzuk which comes from the first six letters of my last name. I figure that's unique enough that I'm unlikely to run into many occurrences of it in other stories. Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be a character. It could be a fictional city or store or anything else that needs a name of some sort.

I've already had one true story I wrote taken and posted without permission on the web and even published without permission, so I know it happens even to authors who aren't famous or otherwise well read. This method won't prevent it from happening. It only makes it easier to conduct a net search.

I use a few different techniques.

For quick names I scan my spam mail. Those guys come up with some pretty creative combinations and even some nonsensical names. (Currently I see Angel Kemp, Judson Rodrigues and Iva Emery, among many, many others).

I also use the name generators listed over at Seventh Sanctum.

For consistency in naming I've even gone so far as to make little linguistic rules for names. (For example: a always followed by e, no v—replaced by f, no i—replaced by y).

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I was playing withseventh sanctum's evil name generator:
I entered Seductive, hunter/tracker, and mechanical. I got this:

Lovepulley The Living Device



Next time I'm on a MMRPG, I'm totally going to play as Lovepulley The Living Device!

I look mostly at the meanings of words/names to decided if it is a good name or not. On top of that I tend to stick to regions/ languages when naming.

eg I am actually planning somewhat a fantasy novel/novella/story have been for a while and I am waiting for the right time to start it.

I choose to go euro. with names focusing mainly on latin (keeping it old school) I'd seacher for fairly obvious words like water, fire, earth, wind (all the main things) and branch off from that word to create the new name.

(problem with using certain languages there isn't enough variety so you have to be open to new things.)

In another one of my stories I am trying to keep most of the names Middle eastern - I find meaning is a very important thing to me when picking a name as well as how it sounds of course.

-Tate

dante-x said:

Well my new approach, and I have yet to see if it is fruitful, so do take it with a grain of salt is to make clusters. That is document the first names that come to mind when thinking of a specific group or culture and then generating names that seem to intuitively fit in that area.

I'll let you all know how it works out.

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Thats actually what I do,although I haven't found certain names in hindu wich i might need help on later.

When I'm naming characters (even for different stories) I have this obsessive/compulsive need to not use the same name twice. Be it Joe or Susan... whatever. I just can't do it. But, I also have an affinity for names having meaning for the characters, which is why I usually don't come up with names until after I've profiled my character a bit. The one site I use is http://www.20000-names.com/ . It has names broken down from different countries and eras. I love it.

Other times I'll simply be driving to work (I have at least a 1/2 hour of driving both ways) and see something on the side of a truck, billboard... whatever, and just have a flash.

My rule of thumb is if the name feels right, then it is right.

I use namebooks from time to time, too, especially when I'm stuck and need to jog myself free of a rut (like the tendency to end all male names with an "n").

However, for main characters or something that requires an extra special name, I try to come up with the name completely from scratch.

Different letters of the alphabet hold different connotations to me. Some are easily explained, and some are just arbitrary. I feel like the first letter of the name holds power over the way the rest of the name reads, so that's the most important place to start. Sometimes I'll even close my eyes and randomly hit a key on the keyboard. If my immediate reaction is "nah" I know it's not right and try again until I get something that feels right for the character. Then I do the same thing with the vowels. Once I have a first letter (or sound) and a first vowel in place, then I experiment with a lot of different endings until I'm satisfied.

That may be too complicated or time consuming for most names, but I thought I'd throw that out there.

In my main series, I generally use recognizable real life names which sound like they have something to do with the character's traits. For example, Rose is so named as in "she rose" (got back up) because she gets back up from everything. Makes it even more obvious when her last is Agen (real close to "again"). Others- Wilner is a guy who keeps coming and coming after being foiled numerous times because of his strong "will"; there's a character named Regis because he indulges in his royal status; a guy named Victor for his ruthless and improbable victories; a Winston in another book (winning, again); a guy named Justin who basically blindly preaches what he thinks of as justice. Then there are characters from faraway lands; people from the north with Viking names (also often chosen to showcase their traits); and some characters with names just because I couldn't think of something better. And Finn, a "fighting Irish" who is not at all "thin". (Don't worry, he's actually one of the most developed characters in the series besides Rose. But I just don't want to change the name lol)

On the other hand, one of my WIPs which is an Arthurian fantasy just mostly uses the name from the legend- easy out. Though there are some changes/additions- ex. Lancelot is referred to as just Lance 99% of the time (by his best friend), Mordred is Mildred (gender change, she's not evil, and she's the main character), and then there's Ares, the cowardly squire from Greece. And Ironheart the faerie hunter. Yes, this is a messed up tale of a hero born of incest.