Character Names

I hate naming characters. It is a pain in the butt and completely unavoidable. There are a number of ways that people do it, and I hate every one.

Most methods of naming characters involves the book of baby names. Some people pick a name at random and stick with it. Occasionally, they do this without the aid of a name book This is stupid for a number of reasons, so I'm going to ignore it.

What most people do with their book of baby names is look at the meanings of the names, then pick a name whose meaning describes the character. "This character is a woman trying to bring people together. Aquene is a femle name that means peace, so that will be the name of my character." I hate this method because of how hokey and hackneyed it is. Would you name one of your characters Hope because she is hopeful or brings hope to others? Then don't call that same character Hope in a foreign language. It isn't clever and it also ignores the possibility that the culture from which the name comes has a completely different context for it.

The next method people do is making up names that sound cool or tough. This is usually for science fiction or fantasy. Every alien either has an X or a Z in it's name, and every fantasy warrior has an unnecessary apostraphe. Sometimes you even get combinations like an alien race known as the K'lyzzx or a barbarian known as G'ontax.

And the truly lazy among us will either take a normal name and change one letter or spell it differently. If you take the name Peter, you can change one letter and turn it into the vaguely-French-sounding Petel. Or you can spell it differently to get names like Petier, Pitear, or the warrior known as P'tyr.

As I said before, I hate every method I just listed. I avoid all of them as much as I can, but it also leaves my options for naming pretty thin. I have a process that I use, but it is far from an exact science.

To begin with, I don't name my characters. When I write out rough drafts or sketches or storylines, I just use 'him' and 'her' as much as I can or refer to characters by their titles (the plumber, the wizard, etc.). When I reach a point that it becomes too annoying or too confusing to me (or if somebody needs to be addressed by name), I sit back, and ponder my character. Who is this person? What are their attributes and characteristics? What sounds describe this character?

And on that last question, I start making random sounds. I've talked before about how sounds are the first level of writing and they contribute to feelings we get while we read. As such, I play around with sounds until the right combination just clicks. When I had a character who was young, but a strong leader, I ended up with the name Aidan. The vowels make him sound young, but the 'd' in the center is powerful, and the 'n' at the end is solid and confident. If I wanted a feminine character, I would use vowels with soft consonants. A tough and burly character uses sharp and explosive letters tightly packed.

This method doesn't produce clever little hidden messages, like the names in te Harry Potter universe all have, but I'm ok with that. To me, sounds are more important. Names are spoken, even when we read silently to ourselves. Because of that, I believe that the sound of a name is far more important than any hidden meanings within it. The problem is that it also becomes harder to find that perfect name. Still, I do find it totally worth the effort once I do find that perfect set of sounds.

In the end, every writer creates their own method. If that method works, go for it. If it doesn't work, try something else. Every method I have tried, I have hated. That's why I chose the method that yielded the best results.