The Art of Names

How do you get the names for your characters?

Do you go on baby name sites, or do you make them up? If your story takes place on earth but not in your country how do you find the names?

What makes the names you choose or create appealing to you? It it the sound or the meaning? Does anyone use the meaning of names to name their character or even to create the character in the first place?

If you've accomplished the un accomplishable and made or found the greatest name ever hooray about it here! If you need help figuring out a name for a character post your questions here and we'll all try to help you out!

How do you get the names for your characters?

Do you go on baby name sites, or do you make them up? If your story takes place on earth but not in your country how do you find the names?

What makes the names you choose or create appealing to you? It it the sound or the meaning? Does anyone use the meaning of names to name their character or even to create the character in the first place?

It all depends, really. Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) I will use the baby name sites or do a search for meanings or origins on Behindthename.com. It really helps me out, esp. in the case of major characters. But sometimes (usually if I'm not writing a big fantasy thing), I'll just see what "suits" the character.

For The Surface of the Deep, I based a lot of names on mythology or history. I tweaked them a bit in many cases, although a few -- like Freya -- are more obvious. But if a name didn't fit, it didn't fit. I always go with what the character likes and what fits.

I agree with what you mean. The characters name themselves in a way.

I know everyone will laugh buuut when writing Black Rose Chronicles I used a [drum roll] DART BOARD!

Yep that's right. I put letters randomly all over it and then left it for three days to forget the order they were in. then i throw a dart while blind folded [trust me this would be funny to watch] and see what happens. I do this twitch for each name. then the two letters i find have to be the first two in the name. That's how i ended up with names like:

Xirori, Zexlin, Gothica, Emothica, Omaga

For my other, less outrageous novels i do the same thing only I'll throw one dart and that will be the first letter then i find real names like:

Aerona, Vaughan, Cathrine, Ralph.

I try to make my real deep fantasies still have rare names though.

That is totally awesome. xD That sounds like so much fun.

For my names, I usually don't go by meaning at first, but I double-check to see if the meaning still applies. Sometimes the name comes from simple things (ex. Violet's name came when her parents first saw her captivating eye color) and others are from things that require more thought (ex. Kaden's mother's name is Sheila, which is also the title of a jazz song by Frank Sinatra, as she had a love for singing and listening to jazz).

Plus, I go on here to make sure the name was at least semi-popular at the time (unless I'm looking at a completely rare name). Sheila was actually a pretty popular name in 1963, the year she was born. If her parents were hippies, they probably would have named her "Lily" or something. It also depends on who the parents are.

Good point. It also depends on what time frame and where in the world your story takes place. Example.

My novel, Aerona Campbell and the Chalice of Birds starts off in old old -before teh salem which triles- ireland. Back when people were killed as witches. Her name was rare then and even rarer now but it took a while to get a name what worked AND that i could work in that another chracter would call her [she loses her memories remember] So i had to research research research! Novels take a lot of that to do ^^