Ah, names. Sometimes characters come to you with names neatly affixed; other times you have to sweat and curse and cudgel your brains and the dictionary, trying to pin down that elusive Perfect Name.
When I’m in the position of having to come up with a name, the first thing I do is to look at my worldbuilding notes, especially on cultural inspirations and language, for help. The Changeling is set in an alternative medieval Europe, so I went to a baby name website to look at Celtic, Gaelic and Germanic names for my characters. Often I know what sound I want the name to start with, which limits my choices. I like my names to have appropriate (or deliciously ironic) meanings, as well.
Season of Rains includes both Indian and Greek-inspired cultures, so I focused on names that sounded like they might come from those cultures (for instance, a lot of names that ended with -es). For Kai’s book I developed some rudimentary language, and made sure that my names followed the language conventions. So if the language of culture A does not have the ‘l’ sound, I cannot name their purebred queen Lamila. Similarly, if in culture B the -in suffix is feminine, my macho warrior dude cannot be Kevin.
Sometimes, though, you’re in the writing flow and cannot stop to come up with names. So you end up with placeholder names–and they end up sticking. Two brutes-for-hire in SoR are graced with the thuggish names of Thurgor and Ragor. One of the antagonists in Quartz bears the name of a smelly cheese (all hail the Marquis of Rocquefort!). Some day, I really must change his name…
How do you come up with names for your characters?
I’m big on culture and also sound. Since I was a little kid, sounds match colors and qualities (thus, the whole character system of Vas’her in the first place), so I go for something that sounds right first. If it’s a language in the rudimentary stages, the naming actually helps create the language rules and I always want to have a general idea of what the name means. After the sounds right, this IS the character, then I go back to the language and make sure it doesn’t bump into anything (writing a language is like writing a book, sometimes I just edit the sucker, but mostly I create the backstory—my languages are much richer for it too).
If I’m writing a modern day character in normal universe, I go back to sound, then look up meaning and/or other people, cultures, yada with the name and make sure it doesn’t bump into anything. LOL Pretty much the same thing, I guess.
Always fun to hear how writers go about naming their characters! I love your posts like this.
My main characters tend to come with their names, but I also always create lists of names for a story/novel before I start writing. Usually a minimum of 50 names. Sometimes a lot more. These fit with the language(s) (as you say) that I’ve created, or the sound/culture I’ve decided on. It takes me about an hour or less to create a list of that size, and then I’m set. Then, when I hit a new unnamed lesser character, I just glance at the list, and invariably, s/he will claim one that suits exactly, and on I write without any delay. I don’t recall every having to rename a character or use placeholders. I also do big lists of possible place names, since I HATE being stopped because I can’t think of what to call that street or that city or that mountain range or that temple by the sea, etc. Place names can hang me up way worse than people names, so I just do the work up front and never have to think of it again.
Deb,
It’s a really good idea to brainstorm lists of possible place and people names. Less disruptive to the flow of the story and better than placeholder names. I’ll have to do it for my on-hold first draft. 🙂