At a library discussion over the summer, one of the patrons raised a hand to ask,
"How do you name your characters?"
Good question. And the answer seems to be different for every writer.
For me it depends on the story. Sometimes names and characters arrive in my head fully formed. Especially main characters. But secondary characters are trickier for me, and I'll admit that I often use names of real people for those one-off mentions or one-scene characters.
For example, the liquor distributor in My Kind of Crazy? Was named after a kid on my son's soccer team, after a drive home from a game where my son complained non-stop (Non. Stop.) about the other kid's hesitation on the field and how it cost them the game. Sitting at my computer that night, it was obviously the first name that popped into my head. I'm not sure I realized what I actually did until a few days later when I was editing...
Other times it's conscious. I needed two female first names for friends who are mentioned once in my current WIP - I used names of kids who were at my house for a pool party that day. Quick, easy. First names only.
But sometimes I spend inordinate amounts of time on Google searching baby names and their meaning... or registries of ethnic last names, if I'm looking for something specific.
Or procrastinating.
I've also come to realize that a lot of writers tend to have their hero and heroine names "match" somehow - starting with the same letter, rhyming in some way... and I'm guilty too, especially in first drafts. But even worse is the proliferation of "unique" names, especially in New Adult books - names that are spelled in some crazy way and maybe pronounced like a regular name. Or not. Or sound more like cartoon names (or stripper names) than anyone in real life would. Fine for fantasy. Not so much when your attorney heroine is named Krystalle - really?
Recently I had to come up with a hero name for a book I'm going to write as part of a group series - and it's hard to come up with a first name without a story. Now it feels like I'm building the story around the name. Maybe that's a thing, though. Have you ever tried that?
What do you do when you need a background character name? Do you ever pluck from real life, or flip through a phone book?
How do you chose your hero/heroine names? Do they arrive in your head or do you search baby name books?
Where do you get inspiration for character names? Let's get a discussion going, and maybe inspire each other with new ways to name those voices in our heads...
Happy Writing to ALL!
YOur posts are always spot on, my dear! I was thinking about character names just the other day because someone asked me if I named one after them ( same name, different spelling. ) I had to explain - in great detail - why I did not name the character after her, but that I'd done so because the name meant "beautiful" which was an attribute of the character arc. Needless to say, she didn't get it and has now told everyone she knows that I named a character after her. Oh well. To name my peeps effectively, I usually come up with a character attribute for the person I'm writing about then find the name that means that. For instance, my real name is Margaret-Mary. Margaret means Pearl. My last name means Hunter in German, so you can see if I named a hero Jaeger ( as a first name, probably) he would have to be some kind of hunter. Get it? Convoluted, I know, but thats the way I think. Any hoo. Another great and thought provoking post, Katie.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand what you're saying. The main character of my mermaid series is named Shea MacNamara -the last name means "Warrior of the Sea" which seemed so fitting! I love the meaning behind names, especially for my main characters!
DeleteThanks for chiming in, Peggy!
Great post, Katie! The names of my main characters tend to come to me by "feel"--maybe a subconscious means of assigning attributes, as Peggy mentions. But I have to admit, I've named most the villains in my Steampunk books after people I went to school with, and who were absolutely ROTTEN to me. I'm not breathing a word as to who...but there's a delicious sense of rightness in it. Ha!
ReplyDeleteLove it! What an awesome - and inexpensive - form of revenge therapy! LOL!
DeleteI've never really thought about naming my characters after real people, but now I'm going to have to! I usually go by meanings or ethnicity. Sometimes I'll look at popular names from a certain decade, especially when I'm naming older, secondary characters--I don't think a grandmother would be named Tyler, for example, even though that's my daughter's classmate's name (a girl). Good things to think about!
ReplyDeleteJennifer - you're so right about making names appropriate to the times! While it might be obvious that you can't name your historical heroine Brittney or Kei$ha, the same holds true for a present-day grandmother who may have been born in the 1930s or 40s. Thanks for chiming in!
DeleteLoved this post. I believe everything happens for a reason, so if you are building a story around a name, run with it!
ReplyDeleteI only have one comment to add. Don't name a character or pattern their personality after a child or grandchild (remember Amazing Amy). I did that in my book, The Suicide Gene. I created Attorney Giff Johnson in my son, Attorney Zak Zahner's, likeness and I could absolutely not write anything bad about Giff. Live and learn!
Great post! And comments!
I hear you - one of my beta readers complained about the evil husband in Ghosts Don't Lie, because her son had the same name and it made her cringe to read! I hate reading books where the main character (or the evil cheerleader, for that matter) has MY first name, or the names of any of my kids.
DeleteThanks for chiming in!
I write historicals, so I get names from research documents, history books and even old genealogy records. I also use ethnic name books and websites since a lot of names persist over centuries. But sometimes it takes me a long time to find a historical name that feels right for my hero and heroine. I've written books where I changed the main characters' names several times even when I was well into the book. And I often change secondary or minor characters' names to avoid having them sound too much alike and get confusing. It's funny how important names are and how we have a sense of what people with a certain name will be like. One of my pet peeve is historical romance authors who use modern names that would never have been used in that era, although in certain periods of history, names were really boring and limited because people used them over and over. I see that in my own family history and my husband's. (He's the fourth Patrick Gillgannon that we've found in genealogical records, the first we know of died in the early 1800's, so there were probably even more in between.) Thought provoking post!
ReplyDeleteGreat comments, Mary. Sometimes I think historical romance has it easier because there are limited names to use, but I guess that means you also have to be more creative with them. And perhaps with nicknames?
DeleteIn my own family, I know family first names were passed down as much as surnames, and every generation used the same names as first or middle names for all the girls. As in, if the mom's name was Ellen, one daughter was an Ellen and the others had it as a middle name. By my mother's generation, her mother was the Ellen, but only one of her kids got the Ellen as a middle name and only one of her kids got it as a middle name. It used to be so much more common to re-use names, but that might confuse readers!!
Thanks for adding your two cents to the conversation, and enriching us all!
I have a list of names I love. Anytime I hear one I like, (Or hate), I write it down on my list. In the book I just contracted I realized two of the names were the same as two of my grandsons. I had to change them. My other eleven grandchildren would want to know when I'd be using theirs names. I didn't want to get that started.
ReplyDeleteSandra, that's a great idea. I may need to steal it - the writing names down, not the using grandkids names. I'm not there yet, but I agree with an earlier comment that it's hard to use the name of a family member because you picture that person too clearly. And they can do no wrong :-)
DeleteAnother great post Katie! I'd say it depends. Certain names just pull at me and I've used them. For example, I've always loved Sophie and she was my first heroine. Other names I researched for meaning both in English and other languages--for example my hero Brandt Dempsey's last name means proud in Irish...and it is one of his major traits. For my 1920s historical I'm researching/plotting, I looked up names that would be appropriate for the time. So, my heroine is 25 so, I looked at popular baby names from 1895ish, etc. I did inadvertently name my heroine Sophie Barnes of Second Chance in Laguna after an actual romance novelist...oops! We actually did a funny little cross-promotion about it.
ReplyDeleteSee? Historicals need more research for just that reason! Top 10 baby names of the year your character was born - or even available names the year your character was born! I know Barbara was up there in the top 10 all through the 40s, because everywhere my mom ever lived, there were a ton of "Barbara"s. Probably how they came up with "Barbarella" in the 60s, lol.
ReplyDeleteSo cool about a cross promotion with the "real" Sophie Barnes - don't remember that story! Best of luck with the new WIP!
Usually my characters come to me fully formed and named. Occasionally, I look up popular names in countries the character comes from. In my first book, I named the hero on a dare (story for another time, Bruce is my husband's name and a demon he is not, but my real life hero. When the book was contracted I figured he was my good luck charm. LOL
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Depending on the book, I've used baby names from a particular year, or for some of my fantasy stories, I based the characters on a certain time period and used names from then. For my urban fantasy I wanted to mix in funny names that might not immediately be seen as funny. As in, you can read along and not realize the name is meant to be funny. Other times it's obviously humorous (like Gin and her twin, Tonic, aka T). But no matter what I name the characters, the name has to somehow fit their personalities. :)
ReplyDelete