Do you have a process of coming up with character names, or do they just pop into your head? Are your characters, even loosely, based on real people, or are they completely fictionalised?
I generally write characters based on friend's main traits. Easier to remember how they react then. As for names i struggle with them, i have one character in my book that still doesn't have a name and i have nearly finished the first draft. But most names came to me as the character developed. Rgds Mikey
Usually they pop into my head, sometimes after looking up and thinking for a few minutes about what their name should be. Many of my characters have some traits or are in situations that are inspired by real life people I've encountered, but none are singularly inspired by a one person.
i don't have any trouble coming up with names... they generally just 'come' to me and if not, i simply browse the handiest phone book... i occasionally do pattern characters on people i've known, but unless doing so for a good reason, i don't make them recognizable as their real counterparts...
I have a few baby name books and occassionally I browse them but often the name just comes to mind. But since I like to read baby name books I've got a lot of name options rattling around up there. I've known a lot of strange people hence some of my strange characters but I don't base an entire character on anyone, I just get inspired by a comment or a certain behavior or a trait and run with it. Sometimes someone I've never met ( just an image or a glimspe in a park ) inspires a character.
What usually happens with me is that I begin to write the character, and usually tack on a name that's stuck in my head at the time (names I really enjoy like Piper or Bailey get used a lot). Then, when the character's real name occurs to me, I go back and edit out the "default" names and put in a name that actually fits teh character.
Usually the names come to me, but quite a few times if a character is from a country I don't know that well, I have to browse some names typical to the region s/he's from, preferably talk to someone from that country, ask for a common or a rare name, depending on what I want, perhaps a name with a specific meaning or sound. I just don't want to have a character with a name that's silly by mistake. Looking at many Finnish names in non-Finnish fiction often makes me smirk; either the author has picked some totally obscure name that's obscure for a reason, i.e. it sounds dumb to Finns, or they've picked a strange combination of first names, or possibly a very silly surname, thinking it sounds cool without knowing it means something like... I dunno, Nipple-Head (yeah, that surname actually exists: Nänni(nipple)pää(head). And yeah, quite a few of my characters are based on real people. Sometimes I mix several people into one character or divide a real person into a few characters. I also use a lot of real incidents that have happened to myself, KaTrian, or one of our closer friends; those usually end up being the most ridiculous and absurd scenes in the story (truth being stranger than fiction and all that). The same goes for people: you can't make up some of the dumb/bizarre stuff real people do.
My main criteria is that a character's name not make me think of someone I know. Since my story is in the future, I am trying out some unique names, but while I'm working on choosing I sub in a name using the alphabet. Adama, Bet, Craig and so on with abbreviations sometimes like EmGee for mean girl. None of those are final names except I did decide to keep Adama. She's an Arab girl who started out as Adam until I decided one of my male characters would have a female best friend.
For names, especially for secondary or filler characters (like for townsfolk that are just for setting / background) I wander over to obituaries.com and browse a random newspaper's obits for that day. This is how I get a lot of my last names for when I'm writing flash fiction or the short bits (aka - freewriting) I post on my project website. I've come to find that if I depended on names to just "pop" in my head, I end up with very similar names which can really confuse readers. Anne
Generally I just stick a random name on a charrie and run with it until I find something that fits. For example the father of two of my MCs is called CF because his daughter used to have a name that started in a C. When it comes time to create character names that I'm going to stick with I pick names off websites or make them up. Then it's time to google the name enough to make sure it doesn't have unfortunate connotations/meaning.
I'll never stop singing the praises of http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php It's "quick charcter names" is randomly generated using U.S. census data. I usually set it to generate 10 and pick and choose. It takes 2-3 generations before I find something I like. But it's better than my imagination where, apparently, everyone is named Tom and Rachel.
As my stories aren't set in the world as we know it, I have a lot of leeway with regard to names. I do try and establish some sort of conventions though. I try to give them elements of both familiarity and uniqueness, and most importantly they need to fit the character. One of my favourite names is a bit long-winded. The character himself knows this. His full name is dropped once during a conversation, (a bastardisation of an old Breton name.) and immediately he gives the shortened form he is known by, (the name that will stick with the reader) and in doing so actually triggers an unexpected turn of events. You can do a lot with a name. As for my characters—some are based loosely on people I know, some are facets of myself.
This is how I would describe what I do, except that I pick names first; it gets confusing to explain after that. I don't base my characters off of people I know; I write novels/shorts/poems/scripts to get away from them!
Character names just come to me as the next name I say out my mouth. I repeat it as the best thing I can remember over and over, my latest being a character named James Striker Often I act out just a scene I'd like to do and then envision the characters. Dialogue comes first then the characters will say the first name that pops up in my mind, which will be a random of all possible names ever. Often taking two words I know that can be names and seeing if they fit, if they don't, REROLL THE DICE! Character traits and plots are often based on people I know in real life and or fictional people or plots that actually intrigue me. Take James for instance, he's heavily inspired by foolhardy patriotism and will do a lot of things for "his" country 'Murica. Inspired by how disgusted I was with the movie Olympus has Fallen and how it was for people who jerk off to the sight of the American Flag. Everything I make has a slight or heavy base on something I like or dislike.
Sometimes I have to look and look and look for the name, sometimes they just come to me or I make something up. Sometimes T.Trian and I end up with similar sounding, foreign-ish names by accident, like Trise and Lise, though they're in different stories. I just had an epiphany. Trise, so that it will be pronounced correctly, it should have diacritical marks. Something like, Trïsè. Goddammnit. Now it looks like one of those fantasy names everyone goes like "hey, wow, so you picked some dots and squiggles randomly so that it'll look outlandish? Real original." Anyway, usually I find the name on some baby name list off the webz, but sometimes I spot cool names from email correspondences, news, tv show/movie credits etc. For some people Adama will always and forever be associated with Battlestar Galactica...
