Where do you get your character names from?

[Linda Adams]

Where do you get your character names from?

I used really labor over them. I’d get a baby name book and go through all the pages, pick about six or so, then narrow it down to one.

Now …

For the last short story I wrote, I was attending a ceremony, and the last names of three of the presenters become two character names and the name of a gun (which, in the era of the story, were named after people).

For my novel, I’ve been pulling names from a genealogical site.

[Ashe Elton Parker]

Depends on what I’m writing. For my contemporary gay romances, they’re from baby name books and sites. If I’m working on a fantasy, I’ll pick names from anywhere, including words I’ve made up or heard/seen around (like misspellings) which, with perhaps a little more altering, become character names. One such fantasy name which is prominent in my head (and to which I can recall the history), is Hwodi. Anne Marble, who runs Think Tank, tends to misspell “Howdy” as “Hwody,” and I just changed the Y to an I for “Hwodi.” In case you were wondering, Hwodi is a prince in one of my fantasy worlds.

Ashe Elton Parker
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
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Member since 1998.
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[JuneDrexler]

I usually write in worlds of my own invention, so ‘real world’ names don’t usually work. In the world creation I usually pick a foreign language that has the right feel for the world. Then I play with the words. I try not to use the language directly, but rather create my own words that match the feel of that language. Then, when I get to names, I look at traditional names in that language/culture and play with those until I have names I like.

I do this so that I get the sense of a real language for my worlds. Of course some worlds need to have multiple cultures and languages, so I might have to do this several times for a given story.

–June

[Giddy]

I generally use a fantasy name generator but then usually combine names to get ones I like.

But I’m not into 36 syllable tongue twisters, so they are usually pretty short.

Tesania I got from a model ship I was building. The name of the brand was Artesania and I liked the sound of Tesania whilst it lent itself nicely to the shortened, Tes.

Giddy

[Michael E. Walston]

On one occasion, I used a phone book.

[Ashe Elton Parker]

Before I foolishly threw out the residential listing phone book I had, I used it to get last names for my gay romances. Not quite as convenient to do that with the yellow pages edition. :p

Ashe Elton Parker
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
~*~
Member since 1998.
~*~

[ErinMH]

We have a lot of cemeteries in town; one is quite near my daughter’s daycare, and another is just a few blocks from our house. I sometimes make note of surnames as we drive past, with the thought, “Oh, I should use that for a character.” I still haven’t, though.

[jameskearl]

For one novel, I saved all the junk e-mail I’d been receiving and used the spoofed “From:” names as character names.

For other novels, I’ve chosen names with thematic relevance. For example, in a SF novel about dealing with an extinction event, I named a character Katey Event (i.e. named after the K-T Event). In an novel set in the far, far future in which the universe is winding down and resources grow short, I named places & characters after oil fields, uranium mines, etc.

With this year’s 2YN novel, I have characters born from the early 20th through the early 21st century. I googled the most popular Spanish and English names of different time periods and chose names I liked the sound of.

[Author]

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