5 Resources for Naming Your Characters

Baby Names.com: The site displays names in lists that are easy to scan, plus you can sort by orgin of name.  Handy if you’re writing fantasy, and you want to stay in the same name family for continuity.  The mouseover popups are a bit annoying though.

Baby Name Box: This has a fairly extensive list of name orgins you can sort by.  The site has an annoying popup, and the search by letter feature is not working.

Social Security’s Popular Baby Names:   Search by decade for the most popular name.  This was great for picking an older character’s name when I wanted him to sound a little out of date.

Common Nicknames:  This is a genealogy guide to figuring out what a person’s real name was if everyone only knew them by a nickname.

World Family Names:  See where a last name pops up across the globe.  Very handy if you want geographical references.

 

Manage Character Names

When I wrote short stories, I used to laboriously go through baby name books for just the “right” name.  I’d search the entire alphabet for that gender, writing down names I liked until I had a list of about seven.  Then I’d go down the list and start crossing off names until I had the one I wanted.  But with the realties of writing a novel with a large cast, that method went quickly by the wayside.  It’d take too long!  And some of the characters just weren’t that important to spend that amount of time.  But coming up with so many names had its own minuses, and I had to learn how to manage all of them:

1. Keep a list of the names.  Especially during the first draft, I have a hard time remembering some of the names, or remembering how to spell some of them.  But I don’t work well with complex systems like character worksheets, notebooks, etc.  So I keep a very simple list–a spreadsheet with columns for last name, first name, and role.  The spreadsheet does double duty with another tab for place names and everything is color coded.

Why not just put all the names in one column instead of dividing them up by last name?  Splitting up the names allows me to sort the names different ways and makes it easier to catch similar names.

2. The main character doesn’t share. I always end up with some characters in the same letter family–it’s unavoidable with a cast of 30, given there are only 26 letters in the alphabet.  So I have a basic guideline that none of the characters will be in the same letter family as the main character.

3. Minor characters share. Since they don’t have a major role, minor characters can share the same letter family.  Though I try not to have them interact–and I stay away from anything that sounds alike, no matter the letter family.  Barry and Jerry–nope, one of them has got to change.

4. Never get too attached. I try not to get too attached to any of the names, except the main characters.  It’s likely I’ll discover I goofed in the naming and have to change it. Right now I’m having to change 99 percent of the names to create a consistent naming scheme.

One thing I don’t agree with is to avoid names ending in S, as Anne Marble on Writing World notes:

This tip sounds trivial, but it can save you a lot of trouble later. If you give a character a name that ends in the letter S, you will have an awkward time of it when you write the possessive form of that name.

I’ve spent my whole life dealing with a last name that ends in S, so this just isn’t that big of a deal.  Besides, it would eliminate a lot of perfectly good names!

What are some of your tips to managing character names?

 

Fantasy Name Don’ts

I’ve always liked reading fantasy, especially after women characters really started to come into their own in the genre.  But one thing I’ve not liked about the genre is that sometimes the names are a little too unusual.  At one point, I was fed up with long, unpronouncable names that I had a hard time remembering over the course of the book. 

So when I wrote a fantasy story, I just went to my baby name book and picked normal, but unusual names.  Picked what I liked and didn’t pay much attention to the origin of the names.  The story was called “Necessary Evil,” and I think there might have been three characters.  I sent it off to a fantasy magazine and got a fast rejection with a handwritten note. 

They’d rejected it because of the names! 

I was quite mad at the comments, but I sat on the story for a month, willing to consider changing the names.  I looked at again and decided to let the names stand (though in hindsight, I should have changed the obviously Russian name.  That was probably the name that got the rejection).  I sent the story to the next magazine, and it got accepted, names and all.

Limyaeel has a rant on what writers shouldn’t do when coming up with fantasy names (I violated #6 with my story!).

With my WIP, I do have a few unusual names like Cabiessien (which is a made up name, based on another name) and Phannelia (straight out of my genealogy.  I have a branch of the family with names like Philander, Herminas, and Havilah.).  Everyone else has more of a Europeon flavor.  But I’m finding it a lot harder to pick names now than I did when I scanned the baby book for “Necessary Evil.”  We now have so may names available from different cultures, it’s hard finding ones that all fit together!