In that case, Tori, why not just use any "name" that you can keep track o while you are writing. You can change it later when you "know" the character better, and realize, "She seems like a Sharon to me!" Or you'll =have the news on, and hear the perfect name for one of your characters. Don't let it be an excuse not to dive into the writing. With Find and Replace, there is no reason not to defer naming!
I start writing, and by the time I figure out what the character's personality will be like, the perfect names comes soon after.
Assuming you're referring to the tool in Microsoft Word - you've just solved a major problem for me. I never actually realised such a helpful tool existed.
Here's what I do: Consider the main or most important aspect of the character, and try to think of one word which could describe that. This will be the character's last name. Second, just find a first name that sounds good with it by searching online and such. For example: In my novel, the main character is a rich and powerful man. This led me to give him the last name "Sterling", which symbolizes... I guess you could say, perfection? Anyways, I found that the typical American name "Michael" went perfectly with it, and Michael Sterling was born!
I go to babynames.com as well to get names. But other times I just go for a random name. I love creating my own names. I think it gives the story more flavor when the characters have their own names. Not like Micheal or nick
I name characters first, then along with that comes, personality, and I love creating original names, they are so right......also I love bringing out the uniqueness in names by altering them a little, for example, Michael and Mikael, Fannie and Phannie, if you get what I mean!!
Whilst names are important, I am always cautious about giving a hero a name like "Maximus Dragonhacker". I mean seriously, who names their kids that? The important thing is to distinguish between a person's Name, and their persona. Typcially, I will try and pick a name that sounds right, but rarely will it be an unusual name, unless I want one for a specific purpose. To give examples from my Evernight series; There are two characters with very unusual names. First is Mittens, an ex-slave turned sociopathic killer, and Innit Vexin, whose name is a deliberate joke. Everyone else, by the standards of the fictional universe, have pretty normal names.
I search for them on babynames.com and look up the meaning of the name I want it to have (this can also describe the character's personality), and decide which one I like best.
I usually go with normal names and I rarely bother with their meanings since I find it odd and annoying to have the prophesied hero have some name that conveniently means "light-bringer" or something else of that nature. Plus it's somehow fun finding out later that I named my sociopathic murderer a name that means "gift of god". Speaking of names, does anyone know where I could find a list of Inupiaq names? Specifically ones beginning with 'K'?
haha, i use that site alllll the time but yes, finding the perfect name for a character is hard, especially the main characters. But with like little extra characters I just give them any old name I like.
I did, they have Eskimo names and a few Inuit names but nothing specifically for the Inupiat branch let alone ones beginning specifically with K...
That site doesn't have Eskimo names at all. Though, I did find "Kirima" on a site for naming Alaskan sled dogs...it means "a hill" so it might work for a person.
That's a dodgy link. They only had one name listed and when I went to click on another letter it said 'the page doesn't exist'. I got that message repeatedly when trying out all the other types of names. Probably verify the site is good before posting the link in future.
I've got American, Japanese, French and German name websites bookmarked, so I can just go there and search out a name for any of my characters.
I usually make up names for some of my more unusual characters, and half the time I use normal names as well (like Eric, Devin, Henry, etc.). I've also used normal words for names that usually wouldn't be names at all (like Zephyr, Swift, Tonguelick, etc.). I've also used a few Spanish words as names for some of my characters (like Orin, which means "rust" in Spanish). There's so many sources for names, from your brain to your family members ^^
I don't know if anybody has posted it here, but I find this site rather helpful when thinking of names. http://seventhsanctum.com/ Other than that. It could be fun. About naming, I usually don't really give meanings to the names unless the story calls for it (when I was just starting on writing, I was pretty obsessed about this too). I figured people aren't going to go all over the place researching 'Ecanusia' is an angel of writing (I did research this... guilty as charged, D'oh). I typically think of a name that 'sounds' good when I reread the story.
I've found that a lot of my characters come with a name. The last short story I wrote only had five characters--three 'central' characters and two to make it seem more realistic (ie, people don't communicate usually with only one other person on a daily basis). One of the characters, Ruben, sort of popped into my head fully formed, exactly how I wrote him down, and he came with the name Ruben. I couldn't very well change that once he'd sort of appointed himself that. The other characters--Abigail, Louise, Astile, and Oyu, were somewhat different. Ruben and Abigail are siblings and I loved the cadence of "ROO-ben and ah-BIH-gail". Ruben is often called Roo throughout the story, so I called Abigail Abi to give them both a nickname. Louise was Lou originally, because I liked the idea of having Roo and Lou. Astile was a name I lifted from Pete Doherty's son redface--I like it a lot, but I don't think I would ever use it for a real child. Oyu is the name of one of my roleplay characters' children. I borrowed him for the story. I didn't name him. My latest story's character's names happened in much the same way. I knew I wanted the female protagonist to be called Alice, and the male protagonist didn't have a name until page two, when I wrote, almost unconsciously, "You look nice, Jarvis". So Jarvis he became. I name most of my characters in the manner that Roo and Jarvis were named. It just...happens.
