The third and final part of this series on names: Naming Characters. The series includes:
- Googling Your Name
- Your Name as Your Brand
- Naming Characters
What’s in a Name?
A name needs to fit the personality of the character in your story. It may convey information about the character or the character’s status. If the character has a title such as King, Princess, Doctor, Captain, or Judge, the reader makes certain assumptions about the character’s role in the story. A classic example is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
How to Select a Name
The author has a number of options when it comes to selecting or creating names for characters. The genre will dictate some of the chooses available for characters. Character names in historic fiction need to be appropriate for the time period of the piece. Contemporary fiction can follow current trends. Social Security has a list of the top five names for females and males from 1919 thru 2018. They also have an option to see the top 100 names by decade, and that goes back to the 1880’s.
Authors can collect interesting names, recording them in a file or notebook for future use. Other suggestions are random combinations of names of people you know, coupled with names you see on news reports, movies, advertisements, etc… Try a last name as a first name and a first name as a last name. Write names on slips of paper, shuffle them, and pick two or three and see what order you can put them in.
Get Creative
Speculative fiction calls for more creativity. Stringing letters together just to make an unusual name is unfair to readers who will struggle to pronounce the unlikely combinations. If the novel is to become an audio book, pronunciation will matter.
A simple exercise that I saw on Twitter involves taking a name and dropping the first and last letter. See what the remaining letters produce. For example, Kathleen becomes Athlee, which is pronounceable and different. You can take it as a starting point and make a few more adjustments. It could become Athlo or Othlee. It’s a fun exercise.
You can use a name generator like Behind the Name. I submitted a request for an English female fairy name and received: Mamie Swallow and Twyla Hodson. Reedsy Name Generator allows you to select whether you want a name for a hero, villain, god, dragon, elf, or many other characters. I requested a male villain and received Karmegan, which means “Rain-bearing clouds.”
Some Dos and Don’ts
Some things to consider:
- Do vary names to avoid confusion. No need to have Michael and Michele in the same story, unless they are twins and the parents used similar names on purpose.
- Do recognize cultural characteristics of names. Research the root words of names and use appropriately.
- Don’t give a character too many nicknames. It’s understandable that a parent might call a character by one name, while a friend uses a different nickname. However, avoid introducing too many versions of the character’s name.
- Don’t worry about naming a minor character that only makes a brief appearance. A short description of the character using the character’s role may be sufficient. For instance, the student with the braces or the delivery driver with the mustache may not need a name, even if they have a conversation with the main character.
- Do write your story, even if you’re not sure about a name. You can use a placeholder such as “Hero” or “Villain” until the characters reveal more about themselves. Don’t let not having a name stop you from moving forward.
Final Thoughts on Naming Characters
You will be spending much time with your characters during the creation and editing of your manuscript. You’ll get to know them well. You’ll know if you have given them suitable names. Take your time in naming characters, so they become memorable for your readers. Characters such as Bilbo Baggins, Harry Potter, and Luke Skywalker, rise to that level.