The Naming of Characters

[SkyBubble]

I've also named characters after someone I have known in real life.

A number of my female characters are named after women I've known. Many even have some of their traits.

 

[BeechLeaf]

This is a problem for me. People I've been exceptionally close to, or who have caused problems, I can't just use their names as if they're an Emily, Sam, Anne, Victoria, Tom I have no strong association with. Sometimes I've tried to defuse it by using the name in a minor role. But I couldn't use X in a story strongly based on my real-life X.

 

[Djmac1031]

I usually start with lists of names and their meanings. I have a character's traits in my head and go down the list, sometimes the meaning is important, so

I don't do that every time, but I have on certain stories looked into the meanings of certain names and assigned them to particular characters as they fit.

Then there's one of my favorite characters I've created: Cozbi

While writing The Devil And Angel Em , I was looking for a female demon seductress name and Cozbi came up in the search. I remembered the tale from the Bible; she wasn't a demon but a woman that was murdered for the "crime" of being a "heathen" who was taken in marriage by a Hebrew and brazenly brought into the camp so he could have sex with her.

Anyway, I loved the name and imagined it would be a great backstory to the character I was writing: a She-Demon temptress making a bargain for the male character's soul.

Although I didn't actually write her backstory until the prequel, The Seduction Of Darkness.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Ever since Life is Strange I've been a sucker for meaningful names and connecting names to the plot or the inspiration somehow. But sometimes I go the Hotline Miami route and use Capped Adjectives as names to not only name the character, but also to convey a trait about them, like an appearance (Red, because she has red hair), a job (Barkeep), a personality trait (Angel), you know... I like anonymous characters aside of named characters, but the anonymous ones draw me in even more.

Sabrina and Taylor are named like that not only because of the song; that was just a coincidence, but how the actual plot bunny got into my head because it was literally shitposting here in AH that got me into writing No Heroes in Love. I didn't plan to name them like that; those are placeholder names. The problem was that they fitted so well that it was nearly impossible to change them because no other name fitted the characters.

Sometimes it's the story that baptizes them, not me, and it's fine when it happens. The results are usually more natural.

There's two instances in which I named two characters after the very same muse that inspired them, and I refuse to change it because it fits. At one point they met each other and fucked, which made me imagine the whole thing as twincest while I wrote it, even though they have no relation.

 

[RejectReality]

It's a mish-mash. Sometimes it's just the name that comes up as I'm musing. Sometimes they get named to service the title. ( Which is usually wordplay ) Most of the names of my characters as Dark have existed since the 80s. They're my D&D characters, their retainers, and the NPCs of the world. Most of those were cribbed somewhat from other sources. Darkniciad is a perversion of Dakimh the Enchanter from Marvel comics. Originally just Darkni the enchanter, I evolved it into Darkniciad over time during the game.

The hardest ones are my magic of the wood characters. Trying to come up with something that sounds reasonable and then not have it sound like a ridiculous tongue-twister when the "Xan" that is part of their real name is appended is almost as much of a headache as finding the right world to precede "of the Wood" for the titles — and also works as a closing line for the story. I set myself some pain in the ass precedents on that series.

 

[Djmac1031]

in my alien abduction story The White Room Revisited, i needed a name for a bodiless entity that had entered the body of a young human woman, sharing both mind and body.

The being wanted to learn what it was like to be human and part of that was choosing it's own name and gender identity.

Since it was inhabiting a female, it decided to identity as female. it then chose the name Vanda, which loosely means "wanderer."

 

[Djmac1031]

Sometimes they get named to service the title

Oh yeah, ive done that a few times:

April Fools Daddy (April is the daughter's name)

Black Barbie

Caring For Carrie

Friends With Bennie Fitz (yeah, the word play inspired the character and story)

One Night Of Sindi (again, wordplay inspired both character and story)

 

[LegendInMyOwnMind]

No offense to you or @StrentWriter, but I could never have a character called "Peta". I'd be associating them with the animal-execution group PETA, which I do not find sexy.

I didn't make that association, though I agree with it. My mind went to "Hunger Games" and "male".

 

[Rob_Royale]

I don't know. With my last story, I must have gone through a half dozen names before settling on Milo and Sofie. I just start with something generic as a place holder as I write, and as the story evolves, their names just happen.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Sometimes I can think of a name. I also have a list where I typed down the names I liked from spam bots in the few Kik chats I have.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

My SF series had a conceit that some people are descended from clones in their family tree, and their last names are characteristically derived from alphanumeric combinations that early clones might have been given, like "Fourbee" (or Fourby, or Forby) being the last name of a woman whose ancestor might have been a clone called 4B. I never do explain that, I don't think.

Alien name Easter egg from the previous century.

You might know that Superman's real Kryptonian name was Kal-El.

It was revealed in the Silver Age of comics that in his Kryptonian childhood, Kal's neighbor was juvenile delinquent Dev-Em. Some Silver Age writer (I don't know which one) thought it would be hilarious to have the super-orderly Kryptonians live in alphabetical order, the El family, then the Ems, Ens, then the Ohs ....

(Dev-Em later reformed and became a good guy in the far future.)

 

[TheWritingGroup]

You be you, but “Peta” as I see her is a character who is based on someone who remains, by far, the best (if flawed) person I’ve ever known, and in using this specific name, I’m not naming that person directly but I am honouring her.

I don't say you shouldn't write it or that other people shouldn't like it, just that I wouldn't choose to write a that name character.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

This is a problem for me. People I've been exceptionally close to, or who have caused problems, I can't just use their names as if they're an Emily, Sam, Anne, Victoria, Tom I have no strong association with. Sometimes I've tried to defuse it by using the name in a minor role. But I couldn't use X in a story strongly based on my real-life X.

That's the name Heather, for me. I used it once for an antogonist, but that's the only time.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

It depends, sometimes a name seems to just fit.

Other times, especially for minor characters, I'll do a search on the 20 or 50 most popular names in the year that they were born, then pick something I think suits them.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I don't do that every time, but I have on certain stories looked into the meanings of certain names and assigned them to particular characters as they fit.

Then there's one of my favorite characters I've created: Cozbi

While writing The Devil And Angel Em , I was looking for a female demon seductress name and Cozbi came up in the search. I remembered the tale from the Bible; she wasn't a demon but a woman heathen that murdered for the "crime" of being a "heathen" who was taken in marriage by a Hebrew and brazenly brought into the camp so he could have sex with her.

Anyway, I loved the name and imagined it would be a great backstory to the character I was writing: a She-Demon temptress making a bargain for the male character's soul.

Although I didn't actually write her backstory until the prequel, The Seduction Of Darkness.

Love stuff like this. I had a reference to a succubus in a movie in my foxxubus story, where it was a movie where a succubus falls in love with her summoner, having free will (in a world where it was assumed demons are little more than idiot slaves, akin to AI). I gave the movie succubus the name Pairika after a class of seductress demoness in ancient Persian mythology.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Sometimes I'm inspired, sometimes I end up looking through lists of names from a country from a certain decade. If a man's name has been used by three footballers it's probably common enough. I often go to the 20th must common name and then down to something I like. Sometimes I use a placeholder name or initial and change it when I think of a better name - Last Christmas had a wife called Sarah because 10% of women are called Sarah, but that's a) boring and b) I have a protagonist Sarah already, so eventually I decided to name her Sadie.

A lot of my characters end up needing surnames. The Brits mostly get names from placenames I'm driving past at the time, or from looking at maps of a certain county. Silsden is a village in Yorkshire. Names mentioned in passing often get nicked from obscure books.

 

[redgarters]

No one method with me. Sometimes it's just a name that I think of for some reason at the start of a story. Sometimes I start from where the story is set and look for names from that country/area. In one case, Cadence from A Melody of Surrender, I chose the name very deliberately to fit the theme, narrative and build of the story.

 

[Eosphorus]

The title character of my recent series, Bloom, came about after @Rob_Royale published his story Lust in Bloom back in June. A few days later, @Prettylynne published her story In Bloom. I was inspired to write a story simply titled “Bloom” with that being the main character’s name. It took off from there.

 

[HelenL]

babynames.it and approx year of birth

 

[StrentWriter]

I don't say you shouldn't write it or that other people shouldn't like it, just that I wouldn't choose to write a that name character.

I understood. I was explaining why I used that name. Personal preferences and understanding are exactly that - personal.

 

[Writer61]

Most of my characters have only a given name, but sometimes they have surnames, either because it sets up a pun (e.g., Dee Nial, Ellen Bach) or because, somewhere in the story, using first names straight off would ring false. In that case, I usually have some inspiration for it, an ageing rockstar named Swagger, a convoluted reference to a Sussex and England cricketer, and so on.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

I get more out of nicknames. The names themselves are what they are, usually plucked out of the air at random, but how one character nicknames another is very significant to me. My most recent work pivoted hard because of the nickname. Desiree became Dizzy, who is a force of nature. A simple story about a shared hotel bed became this sprawling, 30k-word story about a fierce, caring woman and the guy who makes her feel whole.

All of that, because I randomly decided on a nickname.

I love not plotting anything. Pantsing is so much fun.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

I work quite hard getting the names right. The sounds have to be right, the meanings have to be right, they have to work together. My best success has been "Rosa" and "Pierce" from the slutty cheerleader story. I don't remember if it's in the current draft because I've been working on the new draft so long, and "Rosa" and "Pierce" probably doesn't sound like much, but I do a lot with it. I'm especially proud of the poem he gives her along with a jewelry box on her birthday (when she's still refusing to date him):

Hymn:
In Her —
Hold close! Thou
shrine of sacred bloom!
Our secret oath soft-tightly
guard! — Till rubies — rosy — pierce —
thy heart — Cascading diamonds sow thy womb!​

Poor Emily Dickinson now has to join the ranks of authors I'm plundering. But I feel good about it.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I get more out of nicknames. The names themselves are what they are, usually plucked out of the air at random, but how one character nicknames another is very significant to me. My most recent work pivoted hard because of the nickname. Desiree became Dizzy, who is a force of nature. A simple story about a shared hotel bed became this sprawling, 30k-word story about a fierce, caring woman and the guy who makes her feel whole.

All of that, because I randomly decided on a nickname.

I love not plotting anything. Pantsing is so much fun.

Nicknames are such wonderful tools. They do so much. Different people have different nicknames depending on who they're talking to. Is it just a shortening of their name? Is it something specific to an event? Some inside joke? It's a great tool for relational establishment, and can say a lot about two characters without ever having to explicitly state it. Really just a fan of any tool that can be used for implicit conveyance.

It never ceases to amaze me how such tiny, unplanned details can spin things in a whole other direction. The joys of pantsing, everybody! Three cheers for pantsing! No, wait, make that four cheers!

Probably should've figured how out many cheers to do ahead of time, but screw plotting!

 

[anthrodisiac]

Most of my characters have only a given name, but sometimes they have surnames, either because it sets up a pun (e.g., Dee Nial, Ellen Bach) or because, somewhere in the story, using first names straight off would ring false. In that case, I usually have some inspiration for it, an ageing rockstar named Swagger, a convoluted reference to a Sussex and England cricketer, and so on.

Ellen Bach took me a minute. Had a nice chuckle once I figured it out. Anthy Gold Star for you