I'm curious as to how other people name their characters. What do you use to inspire you? I tend to look through online lists of baby names and their meanings when naming characters (gah, makes them sound like my children).
Also, I wanted to see what name suggestions people could offer for a character I'm having a little trouble naming. Here's a pinup type drawing of her (the sketching has faults I know but I was using it to practise my skin shading). http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b55/s ... eycopy.jpg
(I don't think this counts as PG because of the suggestion of a nipple so I'm just placing a link)
She'll appear in Chapter 5 of our comic so I still have a long while to name her. She's a half dragon with a very dominant nature and confident personality. Oh and bisexual.
Sorry for all the rambling. Many thanks to anyone who replies
I usually go with one of three techniques:
1. Check name-sites. Maybe you're inspired.
2. Watch movie-credits. Don't take too famous names like Stan Winston (my gamemaster did that!^^)
3. Choose a telling name Like Mr. Reeman or Pussy Galore...
Finding a goof name is hard work. Good luck!
Read "Life of Lars"
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And all I want is to hear my name spoken softly to me in the morning.
I wouldn't even mind if she pronounced it wrong.
Personally, I always just make up the name on the fly with no meaning attached, with only the endings and vowel stress to imply the gender. Janea, Rainis, Mimmellene, etc.
In one case though the names of all my bad guys were modifications or rearrangement of the nicks of some of the people involved in the community.
It's funny, but I really see 'Ledara' when I look at her. It's not even a real name, AFAIK.
I tend to go with the 'meaning' approach for my characters, although sometimes I'm just being tongue-and-cheek in ways that my readers will never know (for example, Handyman, whose real name is Jim, is actually named after my uncle, despite having an almost completely different personality and look.)
Since most are based on friends, I name them after friends, der. If I have a minor role, I tend to use a friend's or my own middle names and slightly modify them. Like instead of calling a girl Alessandro, I'll call her Alessandra instead, and shorten that to Alessa, oooh look new character name
I make up names (some of which are actually words) that are short and suit the character. It makes them easy to remember. The names are really weird though: Pok, Trip, Flab, Wawa, Pit, Zap, Rex, etc. Even the one human character, Ian, has a short name though.
There's a Civilization on my Fork - Updates Sometimes
Carter and Hannah are named after patio furniture companies.
...What?
And Eddie Crane is named after the main character of a completely mis-titled movie "The Beatniks." ^_~
Quote of the Moment: “Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” ~Criswell~
I make up names too but am a bit wary of that since I tend just to focus on the sound of the name and not notice if the name would sound really really stupid to anyone else. I wrote a story once that had a character called "Cart" in it, which I thought for ages was cool and snappy sounding, and didn't realise for a long time that er it is a pretty crappy choice for a name.
I usually get them off of video games where you get assigned generic soldiers with randomly chosen names, like Tactics RPGs. Once in a while I get a really cool name like Alcott or Zahn, and decide to use it because it just sounds like an interesting and memorable name to use.
Deaths Head II wrote:I usually get them off of video games where you get assigned generic soldiers with randomly chosen names, like Tactics RPGs. Once in a while I get a really cool name like Alcott or Zahn, and decide to use it because it just sounds like an interesting and memorable name to use.
Random name generators in games is a very good idea, thanks!
Worms 2 was always one for interesting names, like "Captain Toenail" :S
One thing to keep in mind is your genre. If you're doing a fantasy genre comic, then making up names is normally A-OK. However, let's say you read a lot of fantasy but you're writing more of a domestic comedy or something "mundane". Making up names, or using off-the-wall names would be out of place, so first step for me is to figure out just what kind of story and setting it is and then what type of names would be appropriate. Of course, Candi is an example of using an abnormal name in a mundane (ish!) setting, though *most* of the characters have "normal" names.
I use BabyNames.com for most of my chars, cause you can search by nationality, meaning, etc. The NC crew was pretty much all named in this way, except T.B. who's name is derived from the RPG...
However, I find a good way to name things are to get names from stuff that either inspires me or that I just really enjoy. For example, in Tales From the Satellite, KC Connor came from a cross between one of my potential names and Sean Connery's last name. Similarly, Dr. Norman Potter came from Psycho, and the Harry Potter books. I just play around like that until I get something that just hits me as right.
Often names have some sort of meaning or reason behind why I choose them. Casper has his name because he isn't the ghost, and Wendy is named so because of the link to Casper. Davey Jones is named for a reason that hasn't arisen in the strip yet, as are the three girls Chastity, Liberty and Pandora.
Grace was named because she isn't...the principal was called Mr Kelly because he was originally Grace's father in the musical version and then Grace could say 'Hey, Dad!', ripped straight out of an Australian sitcom of the same name. That meant that, by a fortunate coincidence, Grace became Grace Kelly (jokes about the dancing movie star) which is also the name of the bushranger Ned Kelly's youngest sister, which was completely unintentional, but cool all the same.
Miss Conway is named after the singer Deborah Conway...because she has a cool song called 'It's Only The Beginning' and that was sort of the theme when the strip first began.
Remember when your imagination was real? When the day seemed
longer than it was, and tomorrow was always another game away?
