Pondering character names
Yes, I know that’s a mis-quote, but it’s a very common one, and it gets the point across. Today I want to talk about naming your characters.
Some people go to a lot of trouble finding the perfect names for their characters. They read baby name books, check out meanings, possible different spellings, whether the number of letters in the name is auspicious, the works. Okay, I may be exaggerating here, but you know what I mean. “I chose the name Jemima because my character is quiet and a pacifist, and it means dove.”
Others go by themes. For example, JK Rowling tended to favour old-fashioned, floral or Latin names in the Harry Potter series; Suzanne Collins chose rare botanical names and unusual spellings in The Hunger Games; and Jane Austen‘s scallywags invariably had a surname starting with W. I’ve known people who take first names from their favourite bands and surnames from their favourite sporting team. It doesn’t really matter what the theme is – just having one can make some people feel more comfortable.
Still others pick names at random, without thought of meaning or motif. “Jenny? That’ll do.” Or, “I might call him Fred. I don’t think I’ve used that name before.”
Me, I’m a little from column A, a little from column C. For my WIP I did take a while to get some of the names right, but that was often because I didn’t want people in real life thinking the characters were based on them, so if the names were similar at all (including in theme) then they got changed. I had a character called Jane, for example, who my friend Anne may have thought was a reference to her. Personality-wise they have very little in common, but since they are such similar types of names I changed Jane’s name to something that didn’t resemble “Anne” in the slightest. Similarly, I realised halfway through NaNo that my hero had a similar name to my husband. He is not based on my husband at all, and I don’t think my husband himself would have seen a connection, but other people I know would have. Again, the character name was amended.
My heroine was slightly different. In early drafts I called her Emma, perhaps because I saw a similarity with Jane Austen’s character of that name. The similarity has now disappeared, and the name didn’t feel right at all. I played with different options but finally decided on amending Emma as slightly as I could, simply by adding a G to the front. “Emma” just didn’t fit properly; “Gemma” fits perfectly. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
I guess what I’m trying to say here is that everyone is different, and there’s no right or wrong way to name your characters. Essentially, whatever feels right for you as a writer is the way to go. I’m curious about you, though. How do you name your characters? What method works best for you? And what difficulties have you come across in the process? I’d love to hear. :)
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I try to think of names that are appropriate to the characters’ ages; eg, I wouldn’t call a child ‘Alfred’.
I go to a lot of trouble to make sure that my characters’ names are all fairly distinct. No two start with the same sound or end with the same ending.
Nicknames are much more fun. My WIP features a character called ‘Einstein’ because he’s a bit thick.
That’s an excellent point, Peter, though of course some of the old-fashioned names are coming back for babies, like Archie. But yes, the year the character was born has to play a part. I’ve been known to look at the top 100 baby names for that year for the country my character was born in, and choosing a name from that. So yes, some research has to go into it. On the other hand, I try not to think about it too much – I’d rather concentrate on plot!
As for sounding the same, it can be hard to have female names that don’t all end with “a” or “y” (or “i”), because probably three quarters of them seem to. It is a good thing though to have names sound as different as possible. I remember the first time I read Lord of the Rings, I had trouble remembering which one was Sauron and which one Saruman, because the names were just a little too similar for my liking.
I know what you mean. its so hard finding names for my characters. It always makes my story stall.
Yep, it can be a problem. I find that some characters have the same name all the way through, but others can have their names changed up to a dozen times before I get it right. If it’s making your writing stall, though, then I’d suggest giving them temporary names on the first instance just so your muse can get going, and then working out what you want to call them later on. At least, that’s what I do
Oh yes; this is a good idea. My early drafts are scattered with pseudonyms such as *LI (the love-interest character), *BG (the boss greenie), and so on. The asterisks make it easier when it comes to the eventual find-and-replace: you don’t want to change ‘list’ to ‘mariast’.
Hahaha. Now why didn’t I think of that? I usually give them actual names … Jim, Sarah, Mike, Jane, that sport of thing. But your way is better because you don’t get stuck with the temporary name if someone makes a joke about it or something. And the asterisk is a masterstroke for avoiding find-and-replace errors. Great idea!
Good topic, Emily. I use different approaches for different story lengths and genres. For contemporary fiction, I might choose names that fit the characters ages and backgrounds. If the story is fantasy, I might make up easy to pronounce and easy to remember names that are very different from each other.
As you said, similar sounding names can confuse readers unless it’s a book like Fox in Sox by Dr Seuss, e.g., Ben and Bim. In a novel length fantasy I’m writing, I use names from the 14th century, but some are twisted by adding an extra letter. This can annoy some readers, but sometimes I can’t help it. A character will often insist I spell it a certain way.
Baby name lists are a great resource and my wife is an early childhood teacher so I’ve managed to borrow some of the names she mentions.
Last names are fun too. The white pages has a huge (endless?) supply.
The only real difficulty I have is I don’t like changing characters’ names. I suppose that reflects the effort I put into naming them in the first place.
I admire people like you who put so much thought into naming their characters, and I completely agree that sometimes they insist on certain names or spellings. I haven’t yet had to name characters from anything other than a twentieth or twenty-first century setting (and from a culture I’m familiar with) so I haven’t had quite the same experiences as you, but I know what you mean. To be honest, I hadn’t thought of the White Pages as a resource. *shakes head at herself* Good idea!
I usually just go by a certain feeling. Sometimes I know the right name for a character as soon as he or she comes into existence in my mind. Other times I’ll look through baby name books or websites until I find a name that feels right. The search options on name websites are especially helpful if I need a name of a particular origin. There have been a couple of times where I had to search for a long time or vary/make up a name in order to get it just right.
That sounds very similar to my process, to be honest! Some characters need a lot of thought given to their names, whereas others just get the right one straight up. Occasionally, though, I must admit that I changed a name just to get a particular joke or reference in, which usually matches their character in a way that any variations on the initial name didn’t.
I honestly find choosing names to be the most difficult part of writing! I know it shouldn’t be that much of an issue, but it’s a nightmare to me. I come up with names, then hate them, then my characters just have no names – my hero was called “blah blah” for so long at one point that I still think of him as that. Then there is the problem of similar sounding names. I HATE it when stories have too many similar names or names that start with the same letter – and then I discover that I have written a story with four names starting with ‘E’. SIGH! It’s a minefield.
Ah, Holly. I think you need to invest in a baby name book. You learn all sorts of interesting things, like the fact that Cameron means “crooked nose” (that pushed it off my shortlist pretty quickly) and Bethany is “house of poverty and despair”. Really, though, for short-term name fixes you can just open a page at random and use the first one you see, whereas you can put some thought into the names they end up with. If you want to, of course.
Good luck!
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