My characters don't name themselves. When I give a character a name, it's the result of a lot of work on my part. What's weird, though, is that after the first main character is named, most of the other names come pretty readily. (But that first one is a killer.)
For example. In the novel I'm working on now, the Heretic King, I had two main characters. It's offworld fantasy, and one of the main characters is from fantasy-Egypt/Greece and the other MC is from fantasy-India. I had a bunch of scenes in my head that I was just bursting to write, but I've never been able to start a novel without named characters. So I spent a day (literally, 8+ hours) trying to think up names for these characters. I must have read half of behindthename.com. Then I had to go to a baby shower. I spent the car ride there and back (and the whole party, except, of course, while we were having cake) thinking of names. At twelve that night, I finally came up with some names and started writing. (The girl's name is Sabrai and the guy's name is Ptolemael, in case you were interested.)
I've never really given a character a name that had a meaning, like Miri does--I go more for form than function, I guess--but I really like most of my character names all the same. So the moral of this story is: when it comes to names (and most other things), do what works for you.
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I stumbled across this blog by accident but I'm so glad I did.
I've been writing from the age of 5 and it's the most wonderful thing in the world.
I've only ever completed short stories; most of my books are unfinished of half written....
How is your publishing going?
I don't think I could ever be brave enough to let someone read my writing.
What sort of genre are you focused on?
When trying to name characters I usually already have there personality planned out, so I think of names which I think reflect the personality best. Or sometimes, for a contrasting effect, I'll name the character the complete opposite.
I look forward to reading more of your blog.
-Sophie
Names for me are a little easier. Sometimes I consider looking up names just to get ideas, but for the most part, I tend to pull names from friends, relatives, and book characters. I just throw a first and last name together, and if they sound good, I keep it. It doesn't make for anything profound and deep, but it's serviceable. However, I do like the way you make a point with your character names. Very clever.
My characters are often a hybrid of two or more personalities. The characters are based on people I know who happen to be a lot alike. Yes, they name themselves.
In My book, the character, Lori, is a blend of two friends whose personalities are almost identical.
I do not spend much time with the names....I simply write, and the names emerge based on my focus upon the personalites. They are strong characters because I know exactly what they will or will not do.
They talk to me, however; but, I am okay. I am.
Anyway, I find that characters are very compelling when developed from strong, known personalities.
Perhaps, my characters are suffering from Multiple Persaonality Disorder.
I look forward to reading more of your blog. It's very interesting.
Barry H.
Sophie--hey, nice to meet you. Publishing is going alright--lots of nibbles but no bites as of yet. I'm going to keep trying, though. Miri and I both write primarily YA fantasy, although Miri has more of sci-fi bent. That's smart to give characters names that conflict with their personalities. I have two friends named Hunter. One is six and a half feet tall and plays football. The other is a five-foot tall girl. I like the name on her a little better.
Summer--I do a bit of pulling names from friends, but I usually try to disguise them, knowing that the characters will probably die or something at some point in the novel. :P
Barry--thanks! Don't worry, my characters talk to me, too. It's cool how they name themselves. Mine aren't usually that forceful, but it'd be really interesting to write a book with characters as strongly defined as that.
Sophie: Welcome! It's great when you can look back on yourself as a little kid and see something you love already starting, isn't it? And Ink is far ahead of me publishing-wise; I've yet to send out queries (New Year's Resolution fail, but this year will be the year. No, really). I've got a couple of projects that I'm getting readier and readier, though.
(Ink: Since when do I have "more of a sci-fi bent"? That was one book. Variety is the spice of life, after all!)
Summer: Very practical! Just curious: have you ever pulled a name from someone without realizing it until later? Because I've done that, with a girl sitting next to me in a class. The character was a particularly nasty villain. Whoops.
Barry: I love when characters talk to me! It saves me having to ask a lot of questions and prod them around. And I'm with you on names emerging, as from the shadowy gloom of half-buried inspiration (where am I getting this from today?)...your characters sound highly entertaining, I must say.
Just do us a favor and if it's not a common name you use....make it easy to sound out!! Nothing worse than reading a great story and turning pages so fast that you need that little tin to keep your finger moist...and then you trip, stumble and stop! What is his/her name again....how is this pronounced? It will drive you crazy all the way through the book and you will problably end up making up a name to get you throuh.
It takes me a long time to come up with acceptable names for a lot of my characters, too. I'll spend hours trying to think of a good name, because I take it so seriously that they HAVE to have a name I like. I'm writing them, after all. Sometimes the names just come, but that's rarer for me. I have to think about them carefully.
Though, have you ever just picked a random name for a side character because you wanted to move on with the story, and later, when you consider changing it, realize that you can't? That's happened to me a couple of times. I chose a name that I really didn't like all that much, but he wouldn't let me change it later because, well, it was his name. And it ended up fitting him better than I ever could have guessed when I chose the name.
Names are very interesting things.
Hey! I'm an avid writer as well, with my first fantasy novel finished (at a far-too-lenthy 135,000 words) and the sequel in the works, about 50,000 words in. It's an absolute joy but so hard to work in around a busy schedule! Which is why lately I've been writing a lot of poems and short stories and submitting them to contests. But just a word of encouragement - dont' stop. I submitted a lot of my work for competitions, and only recently have I won anything (Alliance for Young Artists and Writers). Never thought I'd see the day... but it came! Really encouraging to a writer, as I'm sure you can imagine. Anyways, I'd love to follow your blog... but I can't find where -.- blogfail. You can check out my blog if you want, it's a similar type except just not focused on fantasy, more on writing in general. rcbogue.blogspot.com. It's called Sidetracked.
But anyways, glad I found this blog and an kindred spirit! Hopefully you'll be in contact soon.
-rcbogue
Aaaand just found the follow button.
Oh, and some advice about names. I use fillers - excellent and often humorous substitutes that mean little to me. It helps a lot when you just want to write, to focus on driving the plot forward and creating that spark of dialogue that you've had in your head all day, but the fact that the best you can come up with as a character name is Akdgheff is really ticking you off. And later when you actually have time and think of a great name, you just use the handy "Replace all" feature for Microsoft word.
I get my names from various places...unfortunately I do accidentally steal them from people sitting next to me sometimes;)
My mom gets her names from reading the obits, but that can be rather depressing.
Usually I think of a name, check to make sure that no one I know has it (or if so, that the character is nothing like them) and then use that if it sounds right. Sometimes I look up the meaning of names, and sometimes I just read lists of names and their meanings, find a cool one, save it, and end up using at some later point.
Also, sometimes a name can spark a story so that's pretty cool.
I think it's really hard to start a novel or a short story without knowing someone's name, even if you know their personality. I like the idea of letting them name themselves, but usually it's too late by the time you know what their name should have been, you've gone and named them something else and now it fits (that happened to my cat Moose).
Last names are the hardest part I think. I always end up with ones like John Johnston or Sara Smith, so for the most part I make up last names. After all, there are all kinds of weird existing last names, so who's going to notice a weird non-existent one?
Last point...sometimes a name helps to describe the person, say if they are really happy and maybe not too bright and you named them Summer, because that is sometimes a stereotype for that personality. And then if you go against stereotypes like Sophie said, it makes it more interesting.
Actually I think spending a lot of time on names is really good, even if the reader will never know how much trouble you went through (J.K. Rowling do it so it must be worth it)
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