Naming Characters

One of my favourite parts of starting a new story is naming the characters. One of my least favourite parts is naming the cities they live in. So while my character names tend to follow patterns, place names are a little harder to get right. Which is why I’m going to share a few of my tricks for creating the perfect character name (because let’s be real, I’m only procrastinating on naming a whole bunch of cities in my new WIP).

YA Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Dystopia lend themselves to memorable character names, simply because there are no rules to what you can do. You’re creating these worlds, which means you’re creating the norms and standards for everything, including names and families. Most of the characters in these types of stories are memorable because their names are so unique — Feyre Archeron, Linh Cinder, Katniss Everdeen, and so many more. And while people might joke that you can throw in a bunch of vowels and Y’s to create a new fancy fantasy name, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes. World building is a huge part of creating character names — their names have to reflect their society, their world, their status, even their beliefs. Would you have a character named Mary in a world without Christianity? Would you have a character whose last name is Cobbler in a world that doesn’t use the same word for a shoe repair person? These are just a few things to think about when naming your characters.

If socio-economic world building isn’t your forte (it sure isn’t mine!), here are a few tips for creating names just for fun!

Keysmash

Yes, this is my first tip. Yes, it works. Sometimes. The idea is to type a bunch of letters, throw in a few vowels, and see if it sounds decent. The name you create from this method will be the basis for all other names in your story. If the name looks nice, but you’re having trouble pronouncing it, create a guide at the back of your book for your readers. Or explain the pronunciation through dialogue or the character’s internal thoughts. I remember reading A Court of Thorns and Roses and learning Feyre was pronounced Fey-ruh through a handy-dandy internal thought. Pronunciation guides work especially well for fantasy.

Random Words

I have a doc for character names that I add random words to every so often. And by random words, I mean, random words. Logo. Bard. Key. Spoke. These are actual words that will eventually become actual names. I love the way they sound and I love how jarring they look with a capital first letter. They draw the attention of the reader and announce, “Look at me! I’m Special.”

I don’t recommend doing this for every name in your story. One or two weird names using this method will suffice.

Specific Meanings

My favourite name site is behindthename.com. It has a huge database for names from all over the world, including various religious and mythological names. You can search by name or meaning, which is incredibly helpful if you want your character name to mean something specific.

Naming characters in books is much different than naming actual human beings (like babies). Characters are allowed to have names that mean something very specific to their life or role in the plot. A princess, for example, is allowed to have a royal name, like Victoria or Diana. Most parents in real life can’t predict what their children will grow up to be, which is why we give a pass to fictional characters. It gives us the freedom to name a character without trying too hard.

For example, Nova was always going to be called Nova, because she is literally a star. Her aliases are also star themed names — specifically Twila, which comes from the word for twilight. I wanted the other names in that book to reflect real names of Celtic origins — Tara and Elowen and Eoghan are all Celtic names, and I did a lot of searching through behindthename to find names that meant “tree” or “river” or “water” in order to get the perfect names for the fairies.

Follow Patterns

This method is two-fold and gets a little world build-y, but it’s so much fun. First, if you have an idea about the influences in your story (by this I mean what real world aspects you’re including in your book), it becomes a little bit easier to find names. Say your book is inspired by Egyptian culture — the first thing you’ll want to do is take a look through a site like behindthename.com and check out the lists of Egyptian names. Don’t forget to check out the mythological names as well! If you’re only using it as inspiration, see what the names have in common, and emulate that in your story. Keep in mind that using other cultures that aren’t your own will require you to use sensitivity readers. And even if you’re only taking inspiration, you’ll want to remember that mythological names especially hold so much meaning that it’s hard to make it unique (it’s unlikely that you’ll be naming your characters Odin or Ra if you aren’t writing specifically about those myths).

For example, one of my ideas is inspired loosely by Egypt, but this is mostly reflected in the city names — Hathyr and Bastei (Hathor and Bastet are, you guessed it, characters from Egyptian myths!). The two main characters, on the other hand, are named Alykhandra and Yazmin (Alexandra and Jasmine, respectively). You can see from how I spelled their names that they aren’t so unfamiliar as to be unrecognizable, but they look as though they belong in those cities, in that world.

The second part of this method is to create your own cultures and your own rules. This gives you the most freedom when creating your character names, but I think it’s also one of the hardest things to do. This is an entire world you’re making up from scratch, but these things aren’t entirely random either. Families tend to name their children after other relatives (my middle name is my great-grandma’s name; my dad’s middle name is his father’s first name) and this is different from region to region. Your world should have its own traditions, but traditions are very localized as well. If your story takes place across many countries (like my new WIP, gods save me), your characters’ names should not resemble each other.

In my latest WIP, Kenna’s family has traditionally Indian names, even though Kenna’s real name is Kennada, which means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It’s literally just Canada. Kenna, however, is a real name. It’s a variant of Kenneth, from the Scottish Cinéad, which means “born of fire.” This was a beautifully random happenstance relevant to Kenna’s past and the plot as a whole, but I also knew she had to travel the entire world, and the people she’s going to meet wouldn’t have Indian names like the rest of her family. There’s a guy named Klayne who goes by Clay. There’s a guy named Spairon, which is not a real name, but it sounds like Sparrow, and Kenna likes to call him Birdie because he watches her like a hawk. Riahn is just the name Ryan but spelled different, and it looks nothing like Asha and Bala, so obviously he isn’t from the same region. I did very little research into most of the names in this WIP. But now I have to make up names for the cities Kenna visits as her journey, and I’m not looking forward to that. Map-making was never my strong suit, but I am looking forward to exploring this world with her.

So, there are a few of the methods I use when creating new characters! Naming characters is definitely my favourite part of the brainstorming phase because there are so many options! And if the first one doesn’t work, you can always change it in the editing phase. I once changed a character’s name from Aren to Aden after the entire first draft was written, because I belatedly remembered Aidan is one of my favourite names ever. I just made it fit the story with a different spelling.

Let me know what methods you use to create character names, and whether you love it or hate it. And as always, happy writing!