How to choose names for your characters
When I started work on my first piece of fiction in many years, I expected I would run into difficulties. Writer’s block, probably, or plotting tangles or research black holes. What I didn’t expect was that character names would be a stumbling block.
My work in progress is a historical mystery set in 1830s London, which gave me some parameters to narrow my choices. Although names didn’t come to me as I started developing my characters, I trusted they would come in time. I had named two actual humans without too much fuss, after all. Surely fictional people would be even easier.
But the names never magically appeared, even as I filled out my main characters’ backstories and personalities and driving desires. I decided on and then discarded a few sets of names for my two point-of-view characters because they didn’t feel right. When I started drafting, I was still using “MMC” as shorthand for “male main character.” As the secondary characters—provisionally named things like “Mr. Member of Parliament,” “Mrs. Boss,” and “Mr. Friend”—accumulated, I started to despair. How was I ever going to come up with names for the dozens of characters I needed to people my novel if I couldn’t even decide on names for my two primary characters?
Luckily I thought to write about my roadblock in my newsletter, and a group of writers came to the rescue with excellent advice:
Dottie Barrett said that she picks a first name that has a pop culture or literary reference that feels right for her character, then puts it together with a regional-sounding last name. For example, her secondary character Dani Fayette (in her forthcoming novel Lily Darling) is named after the Game of Thrones character, paired with a last name that “sounds like a cool Southern surname for a badass country singer.” For my novel, she suggested that a minor character who runs a bakery, so far known by the imaginative name of “Mrs. Baker,” could be “Betty (channeling Betty Crocker) Alcott (English origin, plus a literary nod),” which I think is brilliant. (Also, one secondary character named! ✅)
Beth Ball told me about the website fantasynamegenerators.com, which includes randomizing lists in categories like Victorian Names or British Names. Perhaps my favorite character in Beth’s Age of Azuria series—the badass vampire hunter, Briseras—was created by putting together syllables from a couple different names Beth liked. Beth notes that you should jot down names as you go through the lists because you can’t go back and see a previous list once you click past it. Beth also keeps a “name bank” of cool names she comes across, especially for fictional place names, and then uses them as a jumping-off point.
Ann Podaras, who changed the name of her main character in the latest draft of her work in progress, “lets the parents of the character name their child,” which I think is a brilliant suggestion. In Ann’s case, her character is a mixed-race child of a Spanish father and Thai mother, so she chose a name that represents both cultures. You could also use this technique to bring your character’s backstory and upbringing into focus. What kinds of discussions would the parents have had about the name? Would they have disagreed?
I also recently discovered that Scrivener has a name generator (what doesn’t this program have?). I haven’t played around with it yet, but I’ll update this post when I get a chance to try it out.
For now, I’m going to keep my focus on moving the plot and characters forward rather than directing my limited creative energy to name generation. I’ve made my peace for now with writing about “Beard Guy,” “Thief 1” (not to be confused with “Thief 2”), and the snappily named “Girl Who Washes Things,” affectionately known as “GWWT.” My old friend Find-and-Replace will help me fix them all when I finally settle on names.
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