From Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 1600:
JULIET:
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.How do we find the perfect name for a character? I have no idea how you do it (aside from Amber Skyze who preempted my post by posting her own name-choosing post earlier this week, damn her!). The name actually seems to choose the man or woman. I hear the name in my head as I write the character’s first appearance in my story.
For the male lead, I prefer a strong, memorable, single-syllable name, like, say…Jake. I want a name that evokes masculinity, strength, security, honesty and trust, maybe even a bit of stubborn single-mindedness. And it has to be something I can call my dog. For instance, the last thing I want to do when I hike with my puppy is call out - Eutaceous Whittingham Falstaff Maroney Junior, get your furry butt over here!
My heroine is a little different. She can have a multi-syllabic name, but I like to shorten it. Margaret, in Pushing Her Boundaries, morphs into the more familiar, warm and fuzzy, Maggie. Grace, the heroine in My Everything, is named Grace because that’s what she becomes for my hero, Ben, his saving grace, forgiveness, acceptance.
Eva is Eva in Beauty and the Feast because she is a very tempting apple. (Shades of the original Eve.)
Mari, in Captured, is a variation of the name Mary, Myriam, bitterness in Hebrew - crying salt tears. In Captured, Ekkatt wonders at the way humans leak. Initially he views our tears as a weakness. Later he comes to view our ability to feel so strongly about life and love that we leak from our eyes a tremendous gift from our god.
I keep it simple. For a man, I like a man’s name. For a woman, I like a name imbued with meaning - but honestly, I don’t consciously choose the names. As I said, when the characters first enter the story, they tell me their names. So, that’s it, that’s all she wrote.
That damn Amber! LOL I’m always fascinated to learn how others name their characters. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with you Julia. I love hard, strong masculine names. Nothing wrong with Sam, and Bobby’s of this world. But I want something that sounds powerful. I also like my heroines to have unique names, but something that looks feminine. The names do usually just pop into my head. I try my hardest not to have to go and look up a name.
I love choosing a character’s name. More than few times the character has actually chosen their own name or urged me to change the name I choose! When imaginary people want their names changed what can you do but surrender?
XXOO Kat
My characters usually choose their own names as I write. When I wrote as a teen, I simply used two names: Chris and Lance. When I would finish the book, I would think about the people, and then do a “find and replace” thingy with the correct names. Using the same names kept me from screwing up the names somewhere in the middle of the action. LOL!
It’s sort of all wrapped up together. I think about starting a new story. I play with ideas including names and settings. I actually have a random name generator that I use because I’ve discovered I love “J” names. Jayda, Jahara, Julie, Jason, Jon, Josh. So I have to work really hard to move away from those names. Once the idea is gelling, I search the internet for pictures. The face and name then just sort of come together. It’s definitely a process for me. My characters aren’t screaming their names when my stories first begin, but their personalities definitely grow out of the name.
Every once in awhile names are part of who the character is. My hero Dallas from “A Touch of Lilly” was born on Earth in Dallas, Texas and his mother wanted him to remember his roots, even when he travelled the stars.
Did any of that make sense? LOL!
Great subject, Julia. I have my angels pick their own names when they turn dark, but they pick names from the Bible, just to thumb their noses at Heaven. In my world, the angel who turns them (I call them sponsors because I had a very bad one in a 12-step food program, I call her the Food Nazi) that angel gets to name the one he turns. So I had one who named their “sponsee” Belzebub because the dark angel really wanted the both of them, including the girlfriend, but only got the boy because he talked her out of it. Needless to say, the angel was pissed. He started using his regular name in the Underworld, Felix.
Very good post. In real life I gave my children names that weren’t common, all starting with the letter A, seems I was ahead of the trend with my son’s name. But as a writer I don’t like to go too exotic, I like to be able to pronounce the name I’m reading so I stick with basic names. For my heroes, good basic man names, sound about right, I give them nicknames sometimes. For my ladies, I tend to lean toward the trendy though I have no idea why. I used to sit down with the baby name books and slave over names before I wrote anything. Now I let the characters name themselves. I’ve even had them rename themselves midstory when they became more sure of who they were.
Mercy
For me when I name my characters the name just comes to me. It is pretty much one of the first things that comes out with regards to the story. As soon as I have a name the rest comes to life.
Me too, Savannah - the name always seems to hit me as I start typing.
Interesting, Mercy. I agree, I just like a man’s man-type name for my hero. I feel like there’s more wiggle room with my heroine.
Sharon - I love this! Yeah, if you’re a fallen angel, then by golly you should have a biblical name! I think I like Felix!
Nina, apparently you are partial to ‘j’ names. LOL! I agree with Dallas’ mother - he should remember his roots.
Hey ya Fran! How funny! When I made up stories as a teen, my name of choice was Lauren - for a guy or a girl. Haven’t used it in a book yet!
I agree, Kat. They want what they want and you gotta give them what they want. It is their story, after all.
Yup, Delilah - I do like a guy with a strong, simple name. Unique names are good as long as a reader can pronounce them. That’s always my rule of thumb.
Of course, damn Amber! We both shared this week!
It depends on the story for me. If it is a fantasy or sci-fi world I tend to use patterns for naming. Cultures tend to have names that sound alike. If it is contemporary, the names will be more familiar.
Ciara, if I’m writing sci fi, I’ll take root words from another language and build my names off those. I did that with Captured.
My characters usually come with their names already. Rarely do I have to research names. I love unique and odd names-Sabola/Sable, Neremhotep/Rem, Allana, Vlad, Marinska, Tom, Sebastian, Harley, Tangela, Andras…The list goes on. I wanted to name my children odd names but my DH wasn’t real flexible so I ended up with a Colton and a Courtney. My son names his children Alyxandreia and Sterling-different names to a point I suppose.
Occasionally I will research names if I need to for specific purposes. In my upcoming release I had to research demon names but for the most part I meet my characters already named and raring to go.
Thanks for sharing your view! I too love seeing how people come up with character names!
Hugz
JJ
Oh Jinger - I love your names! Lovely names. Colton is a great name for a boy and Courtney for a girl - and I do love a unique spelling - yours are easy to pronounce.
I get a lot of my names from streets! For Spirals, I got all my character names from streets in the Valley. Tobias, Noble, and Orion were all streets I would drive down as I went to school, and then I got Kaori’s last name from a street in El Segundo!
I choose the names according to the character’s personality and ethnicity. For ex. the brother heroes in my Dhampir Desire series are of Serbian origin, so they’ve got names like Jovan and Milan Markovic. I use about three online name sources for first and last names. As the story develops, I sometimes change the name to something more fitting.
My heroes tend to be alpha so I like giving them strong names that begin with M or J. If my heroine is a delicate, I usually go with a feminine, soft name. If she’s a stubborn toughie she gets a short, strong name, like Tess in my upcoming release. The whole process of finding names for all characters in a story could take a few days’ work.
Beth, Amber Skyze does the same thing!
Evie - I like your names a lot - they definitely fit your characters!