30 Days of Writing: #3
Sep. 1st, 2010 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lathriel3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?
Oh names. Names, how I love you. How I hate you. How I rarely know what to do with you.
I've gone through many phases of naming. I used to just put substitutes in until I found the "perfect" name for any character, but often that name would stick. I used to try to craft elegant, original, fantastical names that had auspicious meanings/meanings pertinent to that character, but I realized how annoyingly cliche those kind of names are, and I've tried to back off from that. (However, I find that the names I use without looking often do have a meaning that works for the character)
I do keep a baby names book by my desk, with something like 100,000 names in it. I rarely actually get a name straight from it, but rather I'll find a name and tweak it. In my more modern stories, I've preferred using very simple, timeless names, or simple diminutives for elegant longer names, like Ana (pronounced "Ahna"), short for Anastasia. Her love interest, Trebor, was actually a name I heard in college, which I then found out was not the dude's real name- his name was Robert. (See what he did thar?)
That's probably the best way to get a name, in my opinion- keep your eyes and ears open, and when you catch something unique without being silly, write it down. I have a few names I've gathered over the years. Sometimes an interesting name is enough for me to begin seeing the character I'd use it for, long before the story. Often, words alone can be used as a name, or at least in crafting one.
Really, though, no matter how much I search for the perfect name for a character, it's a matter of intuition.
Now, finding last names for characters... I hate that. I'd rather not have last names at all. In The Poppet and the Lune, there is one last name out of all the characters. In The Hierophant I have never liked Ana's last name, and Kyla's I stole from a high school acquaintance who was of the name ethnicity. In the Lotus Children series, Malcom's family is supposed to be descended from a hero created by an Egyptian god, so I named them Khensu after a lesser known moon god. The rest of the last names in that series are awful.
I have yet to find a good way to give last names to characters, but I'm working on it. I sometimes just peruse articles online and steal last names from random authors :}
Oh names. Names, how I love you. How I hate you. How I rarely know what to do with you.
I've gone through many phases of naming. I used to just put substitutes in until I found the "perfect" name for any character, but often that name would stick. I used to try to craft elegant, original, fantastical names that had auspicious meanings/meanings pertinent to that character, but I realized how annoyingly cliche those kind of names are, and I've tried to back off from that. (However, I find that the names I use without looking often do have a meaning that works for the character)
I do keep a baby names book by my desk, with something like 100,000 names in it. I rarely actually get a name straight from it, but rather I'll find a name and tweak it. In my more modern stories, I've preferred using very simple, timeless names, or simple diminutives for elegant longer names, like Ana (pronounced "Ahna"), short for Anastasia. Her love interest, Trebor, was actually a name I heard in college, which I then found out was not the dude's real name- his name was Robert. (See what he did thar?)
That's probably the best way to get a name, in my opinion- keep your eyes and ears open, and when you catch something unique without being silly, write it down. I have a few names I've gathered over the years. Sometimes an interesting name is enough for me to begin seeing the character I'd use it for, long before the story. Often, words alone can be used as a name, or at least in crafting one.
Really, though, no matter how much I search for the perfect name for a character, it's a matter of intuition.
Now, finding last names for characters... I hate that. I'd rather not have last names at all. In The Poppet and the Lune, there is one last name out of all the characters. In The Hierophant I have never liked Ana's last name, and Kyla's I stole from a high school acquaintance who was of the name ethnicity. In the Lotus Children series, Malcom's family is supposed to be descended from a hero created by an Egyptian god, so I named them Khensu after a lesser known moon god. The rest of the last names in that series are awful.
I have yet to find a good way to give last names to characters, but I'm working on it. I sometimes just peruse articles online and steal last names from random authors :}
