Naming Characters

[necromancer]

 Whenever I get ideas for a story or submission I go through it in my head a couple of times. However when it comes to putting my ideas onto a computer I find that I never named the characters, or anything else for that matter. Practically none of my stuff has names until the last minute, its just when I think of something I never put a name to it, its only when it comes to the writing that I thing up the names

 Does anyone else find this happens, I actually think its better in some ways to start with the character and form a name from that, as opposed to starting with a name and working on from there.

Thoughts?

[Ria Hawk]

Usually the character concept sounds cool.  As for names themselves, if I don't want to just make up a cool sounding name, I go look at one of the baby name sites, and search meanings that are appropriate.  There's usually a few that sound right.

[Pariah]

I've got a PDF file on my computer that I scrounged up from some gaming site that I use.  I also write down stuff on my walls that I like from any book that I'm reading at the time, so I'll look through those notes occasionally too.

[manfred]

Naming can be tough. Sometimes I just generate them on-the-fly, and it is a quick and easy process, where I just take the names of people or items around, and twist them until they sound right.

And sometimes I become stuck with names, often important names, and can't think of anything. In that case, I use some randomly-generating software for making names, Ebon is one.


But sometimes, if all else fails, I just end up asking Citadelians for help with making a new name. This method rarely fails.

[Dozus]

Sometimes I'll get a character concept then a name, sometimes I'll get a cool name and a character will develop around it.  It kind of varies with me.

The coolest names I ever get just pop into my head, but when I'm stuck, EBoN is quite handy.  I'll also sometimes pick historical names (preferrably obscure ones, so I don't get stuck with the particular stigma of a historical figure) or I'll take a regular name and change a syllable or even a letter.  Tyler becomes Tylus, Matthais becomes Mattias, etc.  I find subtle changes on real-world names come off as more believable, unless you have a real "different" world, in which case go nuts.

[Ria Hawk]

Another source that is surprisingly useful is movie covers.  They list major cast and crew on the back, and makes an excellent way to find modern day names.  Last name here, first name there.  This is even more effective if you're looking at foreign movies, because your audience is not as likely to be familiar with them.