I’ve had a fantasy story kicking around in my head for ages, but never seem to find the time to write it. A couple of weeks ago, I finally decided that enough is enough—the characters are desperate to get their story out, so I’ll just have to make the time. I settled on Wednesday night as “the fantasy story” night. Even if I can only write for fifteen minutes on Wednesday nights, I will.
I already knew what the first scene would be and was eager to get started. So there I was last Wednesday night (August 12th), sitting at my computer and opening a new Word file, when I realized that despite having visualized the two main characters for over a year, I didn’t have names for them. That brought my good intentions to a screeching halt! But I didn’t waste the time; I named the two main characters. Tonight I might actually write a paragraph or two.
I thought I’d post about how I name characters; not how to name characters, but how I name characters. Every writer will name her characters in her own way. This is one of those “whatever works for you” things.
Sometimes I don’t have to consciously name characters because they come to me with their names. Typically I’ll start to visualize them in scenes, similar to a daydream or a movie playing in my head. If I’m lucky, a character will say either her own name or the name of the person she’s conversing with. Those are the easy ones.
More often than not, I’ll reach the point in a scene when a character is about to come on stage and think, “Hmm, what to name him/her?” Sometimes a name just pops into my head. If it’s decent, I’ll use it. If that doesn’t happen and the character is a main or important secondary character, rather than a minor player (I don’t always know this for sure when I first meet a character—I’ll probably write about that in another post), I’ll head over to babynames.com, where I can search for names based on their meaning or nationality. I can also just browse if I’m not terribly fussy about what the name means or how it sounds. For last names, I’ll mosey on over to Wikipedia’s list of common surnames or visit other sites with surname lists, like mongabay.com.
For minor players, those characters I expect to be in only one scene or short story, I’ll twist around and scan the names on my bookshelves. I never take someone’s complete name; I’ll take a first name from one book and a last name from another book. Another trick I use is to skim the credits in the numerous game manuals stacked on my desk. Again, a first name from one person and a last name from another person usually does the trick. If I wanted to, I could also look for names in the phone book, newspaper articles, or other printed matter, but I haven’t needed to do that yet.
I went to babynames.com for my two fantasy characters. So far I’ve only given them first names. I don’t know yet if I’ll need last names—they might end up with names like Jane of Doe.
So that’s how I name characters. Time to write those two paragraphs.
