When you are World Building, setting a plot, and creating characters how do you chose names for all your characters?
The only part of creating characters I struggle with is naming them. How do you guys name your characters?
Do you think of them or do you use things like name generators?
sometimes I think of them. Sometimes they came from playing with sounds until I liked them. Sometimes they are variations of common names. … and sometimes for the last i will run a name generator (I like behind the name, personally)
I actually get a lot of my names from this site:
http://www.magicbabynames.com/
That’s because generally my MCs name is easy. Once I have that, I want names that go with it for the rest of the characters. So I put the MCs name into the ‘names like’ section and then scroll through male/female (depending on the characters) and unisex names to see if there’s one I like. If there isn’t, I change spelling or click on a different name to see what comes up.
It’s kind of like clicking on related videos on Youtube, except with names. There are always some interesting results!
Personally, I don’t usually use name generators unless I want a name with a meaning in a language that already exists. Otherwise, I make up names from scratch. I do strange, many different things to come up with names…
I may take parts of preexisting names or words and mash them together, may look at something random and make a name around it, may make a sound and go with a name around it, make take whole sentences and make a name around it, and many more things. All of which I have actually used for names.
And if I’m not using a name in that moment, I put it aside in a computer/handwritten document to keep for future characters, names and places. Even races and species!
I also recommend http://www.behindthename.com/ and https://surnames.behindthename.com/ for given and last names respectively. You can even add entries!
I hope that’s helpful, somehow!
I recently got spam mail signed by Jaysen … I hijacked that name immediately.
I recently met a Scottish man by the name Alasdair and I fell in love with that name.
Life’s a random name generator.
I name my characters early in the process. I’m not one to give them place holder names, though I know writer who do.
I know my characters enough to know what meaning I want for their name, then I use either http://www.behindthename.com/ or I’ll use Google Translate and use foreign words for their names. Sometimes I’ll change the spelling of the word to disguise where I got the name or to make them easier to sound out or say. I can’t usually pronounce all the words.
Creating names for characters is pretty easy for me. Once I get a certain idea of who they are (hobbies/interests, motivations, what they look like), I figure out a name for them. Or look at pics of famous figures I’m unfamiliar with and my brain gives them a name.
For my character at the moment, her name is Joanna Bloom. This picture of a lead singer from a group I like (they’re called The Chromatics; the girl’s name is actually Ruth) gave me the inspiration of her.