Name suggestions - how do you name your characters?

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

I love coming up with names.

[Linkara]

Carter and Hannah are named after patio furniture companies.

Wow

"Carter Grandle" makes cast aluminum chairs/tables that usually have sling backs. They're relatively light. ^^

"Hanamint" makes cast aluminum chairs/tables that require a separate cushion to be bought if you want improved comfort on it. They're usually heavier. ^^

[TheBladeRoden]

http://www.behindthename.com

I often go at the random name generator until I get something I like.

But nothing beats looking at the character and using the first name that comes to mind

[The Neko]

Sometimes I like the sound of the names. But I often use them by cultural background, for example two of my characters come from an Italian family, so the names are vaguely as such.

Sometimes the name meanings can be fun, but if taken too far, it can become trite. Just as in real life, name meanings can have absolutely nothing to do with the personality or position of the person, and can often be ironic how they do not apply.

My favorite is to have the names be subtle references to famous people or places, such as "Torrey".

For me, the biggest difficulty is in the last names.


You know what's really hilarious is that so many of the Japanese-sounding names people try to use in webcomics are hilariously incorrect or meaningless. Sure, Japanese names are more literal than Western ones, but they won't name their kids after any damn word, and even then the pronunciation and reading is different with names.

[Biev]

I named my character Aude so that people who meet her can get confused and wonder why she's saying she's odd.

[Lando]

I2. Watch movie-credits. Don't take too famous names like Stan Winston (my gamemaster did that!^^)

That's a really good idea! Makes you notice how many real people have really odd names too hehe.

way late but I saw a guy in the credits today "Jose Azzolina" no kidding.

[VinnieD]

With the first few characters I just looked at the drawing the name jumped out at me.

Those being Pooky, Hannibal, and Penelope.

I also use a few naming conventions, Penelope's familly all have names starting with P. Euclid, the second goth character is like Hannibal, named after an important person from ancient history.

[TRI]

Most of the names I use in my comic are made up on the spot, and are thus kind of unoriginal (Tim, Fred).

Some have more thought put into them: Alison Paige was named after characters from "Avalon High", and Millicent was named after Millie from "Ozy and Millie" (also I thought it sounded appropriate for a semi-looney goth girl), Rachel was picked entirely because it sounds good with fake French accent.

Other times you just have to keep your eyes and ears open for good names. I've gotten one from the news, three from my anatomy book, one from a date on a calendar, and my comic's main character's last name is the maiden name of a nineteenth-century Irish gothic writer's mother.

Name list are also good, especially when you want a name from a particular region or with a particular meaning. And once I named two characters using a random name generator and setting it to give me 100 letter names. I didn't use all 100 letters, I just looked for combinations I liked.

One of those 100-letter-names was actually for a half-dragon character with a dominant personality. Hmm... (But he had a tail.) One thing I thought of while picking which sounds to go for with him was what sort of names Dragons would use among themselves. I went with breathy/sibilant sounds, like the sounds lizards make.

In that vein, when I look at your character I I keep thinking "sh" and "sha".
Shana. Shianhar. Shaedan. Shanahar. Keshana. Kshoran. Shokhara.
Something like that.

[Malaika]

I tend to find that, in most cases, if you are coming up with a fantasy name you can just take an ordinary name and spell it differently. The classic example of this would be Tomas from Raymond Feist's Magician. But it works for pretty much every name.

baby name lists are a great place to find examples, but I find that there is just too MUCH inspiration - it makes it hard to come to a final decision.

Random name generators (if they aren't stupid) are good, because they give you the names in small amounts.

[JTorch]

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.

In addition to that, I once made a name generator that created names in a style similar to the style of names I use. I don't think I ever actually used any of the names it came up with though.

[Dr_Destruction]

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

I'm playing Ogre Battle and got a Beastman named Carmen. I'm just waiting to level him up so I can use a stone of Dragos on him to make him my first appropriately named Dragoner.

[Jackhass]

There's not much rhyme or reason...

...a few I actually put some thought into, but many were just made up on the spot or were made up because they sound kind of funny. A few of my characters have been named by people other than myself too.

I admit naming characters is one of my weakpoints.

[Dark Spider]

I really hate naming stuff, because its really difficult for me. My own personal standards force me to strive for the unusual names because conventional names are really boring to me. The nieces in my comic are quadruplet girls that are named after the four seasons and they represent the epitome of my creativity when coming up with names. Other characters with unusual names are Dark Spider, Zone, September, and Neoma.

My guidelines for naming someone is if it fits their personality. Usually real life isn't like that because people are named before their personalities are formed. But we writers are definitely at an advantage.

[RemusShepherd]

But nothing beats looking at the character and using the first name that comes to mind

This is what I do. However that gets me in trouble when I pull a name out of my subconscious that belongs to someone else. I unknowingly named a pervert in my story after the real name of one of the forumgoers here, and that was embarrassing.

[Black Sparrow]

I try to do a mix of common names, really cool names, and names that were totally made up.

For the more important characters, I also check out baby name sites to find one that suits the character. (although I like to give the cool characters names like Daemon or Azrial.) Other times, if it sounds like it could be a name, I use it (Apok or Reina).

[McDuffies]

I have a lengthy list of names that I use when there's no other option. More often, names come naturally with characters. Surnames, a bit trickier, I use the list more often for them.

It's funny, but I really see 'Ledara' when I look at her. It's not even a real name, AFAIK.

I don't know, she doesn't look that cold to me.

He he he. I like when people make up names that mean something in Serbian.

[Coffee_Ninja]

I just named my characters after friends, not very creative I know.

[Cortland]

When I came up with Cortland's name, I did some Googling to find as many different kinds of apples as possible. Cortland sounded the best out of all of them. I almost went with Jonathan for his first name, but my brother is named Jonathan, and I didn't want anyone to think the character was based on him. Angie is named after a girl I knew from the college Mac lab who was very nice but was also a bit clueless about computers. I also liked the name Angela as she seemed to be Cortland's moral compass in different situations. I've had more than one boss named "Chad," so the boss character naturally had to be called Chad. I'm not sure where I came up with "Wieser" graphics, though I liked the name because it could be confused with Weasel and Wheezer. Todd got his name from one of the yuppie neighbors in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

[Tyras]

I've you've got about $15 to spare, I'd like to recommend ya'll take a look at "The Secret Universe of Names", a book by Roy Feinson.

Though it won't exactly give you ideas for new names (unless you flip through the pages looking at them all), but what it does is analizes names and describes the type of personality they're typically found attached to.
Gil, for example, is said to be sociable, animated, but thoughtless.
And Mona is playful, entertaining, but forgetful and whiny.

I've found it somewhat accurate a decent amount of the time.

So you can pick a few names you think you'd like for a character and see if the personality fits.


Just a thought. I for one draw the character first and think "......he looks like a", whatever.

[Blackaby]

Some names appear from nowhere. Others are names I'd like to name my kids. Which is why I've got an Ebenezer, a Jeht, a Felix and a Regina lying around. Here's hoping Zwuh never reads this thread.

I'd go for Crunkle for that character.