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I'm not one of those people who thinks that names are weighted down with meaning and picking the exact right name for your chil... er, characters is crucial to the success of the story, but picking names isn't really a trivial task.

Despite what some baby-name-finder books would have you believe, a person's name doesn't dictate their personality when they grow up - but it can affect it a bit. I mean, just look at the names which have lots of variants (michael/mike, edward/eddie/ed, richard/rich/dick, elizabeth/lizzie/liza/beth/liz, jennifer/jenny/jen and so on) and ask your character which variant they prefer. (That'll say more about their personality than the name itself will...)

Then there's names with ... unfortunate nicknames or associations for the juvenile humour the kid has to grow up with. That can make some people touchy about which variant people use... especially when there was a famous person/ad jingle/saying/song using that name while they were growing up, which every single person repeated back at them, thinking they were being oh so clever to make the connection. Nicknames are also good - whether the character likes the nickname or not ;-)

I'm probably not making you feel better about this, am I? Giving you a whole pile of other things to worry about when choosing a name. :-)

All I can say is, if no name "clicks" for your character, pick one at random. If it works, great; if it doesn't, you can change it later, when the character grows his own voice and tells you in no uncertain terms about his personality.

I usually pick names at random - although the human mind being what it is, patterns still show up. When I spot them I try to break them, because having all your character's names start (or end) with the same sound makes them harder to tell apart. The randomly assigned names work for me, usually, because I let the character tell me which variant he prefers, and that seems to keep them happy.
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?

Are not used to any great extent in Norway.

If you're called Jan Richard, you'd be written to as Jan Richard, you'd be talked to as Jan Richard, and no-one would shorten it in any way.

That's true in many countries.

So, keep that in mind, especially if you're writing for different cultures. I sure hate to read fantasy where the names are shortened. If you want a short name, give the person a real short name, don't shorten the person's given name.

I recently read a book written by an American, but placed in Norway during the years just after WW II, and I cringed every time the author had shorted a name; especially since the name don't have a short form, and the way she did it was just plain akward...
--
When in doubt,
turn around,
cry and shout

spdyvkng - my homepage
[ Parent ]

Some tribes have a secret, personal name, and a public name. The public name can change over time, depending on social factors.

Then there are the custom of not naming a child until it gets to a certain age (2 years, for example, due to child mortality rates), or the child taking its own name when it grows up.

Some people get nicknames, because of things they did or didn't do. For example this little story illustrates my point:

There were two men rowing out the sound of a great city. John continously pointed out buildings and structures he had built, as he put it.

- You see that great bridge there? I built that bridge alone. But do they call me John the bridge-builder?

They went a bit longer and John was at it again:

- Do you see that marvellous quay there? I built that quay alone, dragged each stone all the way here on my own. But do they call me John the quay-builder?

Then they passed the last structure, the lighhouse:

- Do you see that grand lighthouse there? I built that lighthouse on my own. I had to take each brick across from the sound from the mainland in this very boat. But do they call me John the lighthouse-builder?

- But have intercourse with one sheep....

Well, I guess that comes under social cicumstances.
--
When in doubt,
turn around,
cry and shout

spdyvkng - my homepage
[ Parent ]

Not a bit longer, Paul...
--
When in doubt,
turn around,
cry and shout

spdyvkng - my homepage
[ Parent ]

Life cereal. The bane of my childhood existence.<p>
-- All my online writing is here.
[ Parent ]

the process of creating a character includes giving her (or him) a name. I find that, once they're named and have a situation framed out, they proceed to do whatever they like, irrespective of any plot ideas I might have had.

As janra says, sorry to put even more angst into the process of choosing names for characters. There have been times I decided I needed to change a character's name, and it seemed a violent thing to do.
Exploring dark places since last Thursday

Here's how I fix this situation. There's a site called babynames.com, in the site you can look up names by meaning. For example, if you want your main character to be tall, then you type in tall and hit go and it'll bring up a list of names that mean tall.

For me, I just chose from this list, and usually I'm pretty happy with the name of the character.

Hope that helps.

Honey

Names of characters that are hard to pronounce are distracting...regardless of nationality- pick something that won't keep the reader thinking about the name more than the content of the book.

Hey, you actually put some vowels in there! And there's no punctuation - slacker...

I hate it when I can't pronounce a name in my head, at least. It make it so much harder to remember...

Drawing letters out of a hat or banging on the keyboard randomly is a simply awful way of inventing alien or fantasy names. Drawing syllables out of a hat, on the other hand, is great because syllables are pronounceable. Unless I have a character who thinks the name is unpronounceable and mangles it in an amusing and pronounceable way, of course, in which case I have fun with it. :-)
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

Character Names?