Naming Characters

[sr71plt]

. Who in their right mind calls his child "Chastity" anyway Apart from Cher, that is...

It would be a fun name for a hooker in a story.

 

[Hypoxia]

It would be a fun name for a hooker in a story.

I knew three sisters named Faith, Hope, and... Ann. The family plan was for the third daughter to be either Charity or Chastity. Then the dad ran off with an exotic woman a couple months pre-partum, and the mom decided the name game was stupid. So, no Charity, no Chastity, just Ann. Life is like that sometimes.

 

[JonB1969]

Just curious about what you guys think about naming characters. Some of my friends who write put a ton of time and energy into researching names and their meanings, and coming up with special spellings and stuff. (like spending days on it obsessing) And then I have other friends who are content with names like Bill, Joe, Suzy, etc. I'm sort of in the middle, and like to give my main characters a memorable but not overly unique name while letting non-essential people have plain or common names. I do research meanings sometimes but usually when I am thinking of a character and how he or she looks, I can come up with the perfect name. And it might not mean anything special at all (like many American and English names which are taken from Latin for random objects or from Scotch-Irish surnames for instance) but it just seems perfect for that character. Its kind of like when you see a stranger and think, "She looks like a Margaret" or "He looks like a Bob". Or maybe I'm the only one who does that haha.

How do you pick the perfect name?

That is a really good question and I wish I had a really good answer LOL.

Picking a name for a character is hardly a science. Even the waitress who serves drinks to the major characters needs a name.

My advice would be visit the baby name sites (and trust me, there are quite a few) and just browse through the names. Or as you say in your own post, go with what feels right. I usually do that, I will go purely by instinct as to what name feels right with a certain character. I can't explain how it happens but it just does. Once in a while I will go a baby name site if I come across a unique or exotic name to find out what it means.

I don't think this helped very much but I hope it does.

 

[sr71plt]

Even the waitress who serves drinks to the major characters needs a name.

Not really. The waitress has a name, but unless it has some importance to the action, no, not every minor character wafting through the story needs to be named. That's just needless clutter.

Nor, as was once repeatedly claimed by some responders to this forum does every character, even major characters, have to be named in the first paragraph for the reader to be able to buy into character. There are perfectly good stories written where even the protagonist is never given a name. Naming characters does not control whether a story is good or not.

 

[lovecraft68]

That is a really good question and I wish I had a really good answer LOL.

Picking a name for a character is hardly a science. Even the waitress who serves drinks to the major characters needs a name.

My advice would be visit the baby name sites (and trust me, there are quite a few) and just browse through the names. Or as you say in your own post, go with what feels right. I usually do that, I will go purely by instinct as to what name feels right with a certain character. I can't explain how it happens but it just does. Once in a while I will go a baby name site if I come across a unique or exotic name to find out what it means.

I don't think this helped very much but I hope it does.

If anything I'm known for paying attention to little details, but I don't thinki the waitress needs a name. Unless she is going to be more than just the waitress in the current story or down the line.

But if its just two characters at dinner, saying "We stopped speaking while the waitress brought our drinks" I don't think its necessary.

Having said that, that is simply my opinion and if you want to name all of your characters go for it. I don't think there are etched in stone right or wrong ways in actual writing, just right and wrong ways for the author.