Melvin thrust deep into her, his buttocks...

[Munachi]

ew, names. that is one of the most difficult things for me. I don't give names t my characters, if I can get away with it. It isn't only the difficulty to find an "approapriate" name, but also that names give them a reality, a down-to-earth-ness, I often like to avoid.

But it is necessary at times, just to be able to refer to them. One of the stories I am working on right now needs a lot of names. There are too many people to even see through it without names. It also needs a few last names, as some of these people are teachers at a school. Well so far I am going by names that just come into my mind, and that I think are nice, or not nice, or somehow fit the character. For the last names I just opened random books or magazines and looked for a name there. I like stories in which there is a hidden meaning to the names, but not a too obvious one. But I usually can't come up with such names.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Totally agree with that. Nothing odd, no cute spellings. No gender-confusing names. *ahem*

Mmm?

*grin*

 

[carsonshepherd]

Mmm?

*grin*

*lick*

 

[Belegon]

It depends on the story...I've changed names in some stories with, IMHO, little or no effect on the character...yet I can't imagine "Megan" from "Megan's Secrets" being any other name....and Gena from my first stories, her name and it's spelling are a part of her to me; yet in that same story if "Lance" became "Randy" it wouldn't change my notion of him at all.

But if we changed his name to Napolean that would have an effect....

 

[JRaven]

careful with this function... I replace one at a time... because once I had a character named "Pat" and replaced him with "Stuart"... hit that "replace all" function and suddenly had sentences like, "I knew he was being Stuartronizing."

You can fix that by finding [space]Pat[space] and replacing it with [space]Stuart[space]. Also, tell MS Word to match case.
This way, even a sentence like "He pat her on the ass." doesn't get changed.

Jenny

 

[SadieRose]

I once named a character Gwyneth because she wasn't meant to be likable, and I have an unreasoning hatred of Gwyneth Paltrow.

Heheh! I like your rationale there!

I like to give characters weird names because I always think that sticks in my mind when I read something. Thomas Hardy was brilliant at giving his characters wildly romantic names. The characters always come before the plot therefore I try not to change them once I've started but sometimes I spell them wrong (thank the Goddess for spell checkers and find/replace!)

Orgasmically Happy New Year, everyone!

*kisses*
Sadie

 

[JRaven]

Names can sometimes get me in trouble. I've had a Stacy and a Susan in the same story and confused them. It confused the readers even more!

Now, I work out the names first like a lot of you. (hey, I'm just learning)
First, I work out what the first letter will be for each character. If two characters' names start with the same letter, I make sure they're different genders.

Sometimes, I use working names. I started writing a story for the Winter Holiday Contest about two sisters and they're husbands. For working names, I was using my sister and myself. Of course, IF I finish it in time for next year, I'll change the actual names.

For a source, I use the company phone directory where I used to work. I just think of a person who is similar to the character in the story and use they're first name. If I need a last name, I think of two people that somewhat match the character in the story. Then I use the first name of one, the last name of the other.

Seems to work okay.

Jenny