One thing that satisfies my power madness is naming characters.
I just love it. But here’s a secret: I don’t think about names for very long. I have never evrer agonized over what to name a character.
I don’t know if this even counts as a tip, but when I need to name a character I just start typing consonants and vowels and see what comes out. If it’s too close to another name I’ve already used, I change a couple letters.
Here are some actual tips:
Try to make names pronounceable.
I’ve been accused of coming up with unpronouncable names. (Ahem, Yples. Or Flaumishtak.) In my first novel I had a character called Boffoygeedanama. (In my defence, he was a bigfoot. And he went by a much easier to pronounce nickname: Grizz.)
Avoid having characters with similar names. For instance, Sauron and Saruman might be confusing for some readers.
Don’t worry too much. Changing a name is easy with find and replace. I once named a character Beyonce. That did not make it to the final book.
Here’s where a few names in my books came from:
Harvin: a character in my first series (Bigfoot Galaxy). I needed a name. I happened to have a Green Bay Packers game on. I looked up and their adversaries for the day (Minnesota Vikings) had a talented wide receiver called Harvin. I saw it on the back of his jersey. I took it. I moved on.
Writing an early version of Thief of Sparks I had to name a ginger-haired young thief. I was listening to The Eagles at the time. I grabbed the name Henley from their drummer, Don Henley.
The monarch of Starside’s first name is Ell, which I stole from my daughter Ella.
When I named Dunne Yples (who later in the series becomes Kila’s main foe), my mind drifted over Ypres, the Belgian town figuring in WWI battles. Why? Who knows. I went with it, and the resonances (which are meaningful to me and invisible to my readers) ring in my subconscious mind as I write his story.
The donkey Tolky was originally named Tolkin, but I thought that was a bit too on the nose. So I shortened it.
The Hargothe was a phrase I typed purely in the stream of creative flow. I later read an old science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett that had a character called Hargoth! I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Terms like dragnithan, qiznithan, yoznithan, or felnithel. All of that comes from stream of creative flow. Same thing with the term “shadline” which first appeared in an unfinished proto-story that I wrote years before starting Staride Saga.
Sign up to get more of my insightful (and often contrarian) tips, tricks, and inspo about writing fiction.