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Are you ready to create character names?
Naming a character is one of the highlights of the writing process. You might have the right name in mind right from the very start, or you might discover the perfect name for all your characters along the way. It’s not procrastination, you chant, as you let yourself run wild on the latest baby name website, search pop culture memes, trawl different languages for special meanings, and jot down any memorable names you come across in people you meet; it’s research, absolutely!
You want to choose names that sound good, match the personality of your main characters, feel interesting and vibrant, and say something about the world and setting.
Think about the iconic character names from science fiction and fantasy, like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in Star Wars, Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series—and, indeed, Harry Potter himself. All of them say something about where the story takes place, from the nature-inspired names in Katniss’s District 12 (Primrose, Haymitch, Gale) placed in high contrast against the Latin-inspired names of the Capitol (Plutarch, Seneca, Coriolanus). Consider the bog-standard ordinariness of the boy who lived in the cupboard under the stairs... Until one day he learns he is a wizard. The awe and magic we experience alongside Harry as he discovers the existence of the Wizarding World wouldn’t work if his name was already Frodo Baggins, would it? He has to come from the ordinary world, from the dull suburbia of 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England. The common names make it.
If you’re ready to create character names, prepare for some inspiration!
In this article, author and The Novelry writing coach Gina Sorell dives into her top five tips for naming a character. As a professional namer, Gina has worked with everything from Fortune 500 and tech companies to independent creatives and small mom-and-pop shops, naming companies and products for over 17 years. Gina now gets to have fun as a writer, naming characters by considering a character’s personality and history, choosing punchy titles that fit the genre, and deciding quirky and unique place names.
The naming process
Naming is one of my favorite parts of novel writing. Naming places and things, and especially naming all the characters. Once I give my character a name, they come to life. Suddenly, they are no longer just an idea but a real, living, breathing person on the page.
We spend a lot of time carefully considering the names of our real-life children and pets, so it makes sense that we do the same for our fictional family members. These names will become an integral part of our story and live on in the imaginations of our readers long after they’ve finished reading the last page.
I can get lost in researching and creating the perfect name for my characters. There are as many things to consider as there are avenues of naming. I want the names of my characters to inspire me as I write and send a special message to my readers. I look to the name as another great way to communicate information about my cast of characters and their place in the worlds I have created.
A name can feel like a call to action, a declaration, an invitation, a promise, or even a challenge.
It can be friendly and playful or stately and serious.
While most of us go by the names we are given, our characters get to live with the names we have carefully chosen.
Sometimes, an author creates a character of themselves, a separate identity, or a pen name that aligns with the work or genre that they are writing in. For example, the author Daniel Handler is widely known to many as Lemony Snicket, which is a delightful name! Lemons are tart and acidic, and the surname Snicket is fun to say and connotes persnickety. It isn’t a coincidence that the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events gives astute acerbic observations, his careful use of language and attention to definitions of certain words playing an essential part thematically in each of the stories.
I always liked the game where you take your first name and use the name of the street you grew up on for your surname to find your pen name. Mine would be Gina Hollywood. I’d use that pen name for all my romcoms!
Let’s dig into how to name your main characters and the other characters in your novel.
5 secrets to creating great character names
When choosing names, I think about what I want the name to communicate and how I want it to be received. I start with pen and paper and try to answer the five As.
1. Audience
Who are my readers? Do they love quiet novels or big books? If I’m writing contemporary fiction, I might want to avoid French Aristocratic names unless I’m doing so to make a point.
2. Achieve
What is my objective with the name? What am I trying to communicate?
3. Attitude
What is the spirit of the name? Its tone and style. Is it a punny name, an authoritative, commanding name, or a too-cool-for-school name?
4. Attributes
What is the nature or essence of the character that I am trying to convey? And finally:
5. Ancestry
What does the name mean, and where does it come from?
It might be that one of these As is more important to you and your story than another. Maybe you’re writing historical fiction, so ancestry would be important. I don’t think you’d find a lot of characters named Apple and Sky in Elizabethan England, or Huckleberry and Jebediah in Eastern Europe at the start of the twenty-first century.
If you’re writing contemporary fiction, you might want to look at contemporary names, and thankfully, there are so many online resources that can catalog the top baby names for each year.
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Examples of good character names
So much of naming is asking yourself what a name means or communicates on an intellectual level, and also how it makes you and the reader feel.
Names like Ophelia, Romeo and Aphrodite connote romance (and often historical romance), while a name like Sir William Stuttridge III or Dame Gwendolyn Merriwether feels aristocratic.
Mary Poppins feels as playful as its namesake, while Cruella de Vil, a play on cruel and devil, tells you this is one evil woman.
A name can give clues about a character’s origin, what part of the world, city or country they come from, and even what generation. How often have we heard someone describe a name as old-fashioned or trendy? It can play into a character’s social status, or it can play against those things.
Sometimes, when naming my characters, I’ll work backward, focusing on who they are and what they represent and then find a name with a corresponding meaning.
A noble and honorable man might be called Grayson, and a delicate flower of a woman, Lily. I always check the meaning of the name once I think I’ve decided what to call my character, just to make sure that the meaning and the traits of my character aren’t at odds with one another.
Further tips for naming a character
Keeping a running list next to me so that I don’t start naming too many characters with the same letter is also really helpful. There has been more than one occasion when I realized that everyone’s first name begins with an M or an L. While I might know five Jeffs in real life, I don’t want to do that to my reader.
Nor do I want to give characters names that have readers constantly wondering if they can pronounce it correctly. If I choose a unique name, I make sure that someone or something tells the reader the correct way to say it.
Whatever you decide to name your characters, rest easy knowing that there are many great online resources to help you do it. Baby name lists, popular names in history, names from the phone book, friends, nicknames, pop culture, artists, flora, fauna, geography, mythology and, of course, literary inspirations are all wonderful inspirations and a great resource.
And don’t be surprised if you give your character one name at the start of your novel and then change it partway through as you get to know them better. This is a natural part of the editing process. While changing names may be trickier in real life, anything can happen in fiction.
Happy naming!
For more tips on writing and editing your novel, join us on a creative writing course at The Novelry today. Sign up for courses, coaching and a community from the world’s top-rated writing school.
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