The Name Game: How Do You Name Your Characters?

Let's talk about naming your characters for the new Roundtable.

What resources do you consider the most valuable when coming up with character names?

Samantha Dunaway Bryant: When I’m working in a contemporary, close to real-world setting, I look at details like where my character is from, what year they were born, who their parents were, and use that to help me select a likely name.

Census records and baby name books are useful for this.

Cindy Bergquist: Some come to me. Some I reference my favorite character naming book, The Character Naming Sourcebook. 

Lisa Haman: For me it depends on the story I'm writing. For The Insignificant Amy Dodd, I tried to think of a name that sounded like someone who is invisible. For Philippa Marlowmellow, since it was a parody of the noir detective stories I tried to make the name sound like an old detective series.

Van Allen Plexico: Writing ALPHA/OMEGA from 2005-2024, I needed a LOT of Russian names. Like 35 distinct Russian characters. I used every source I could find for first and last names, from websites to baby name books.

And I still wasn't completely happy with the range of Russian names!

Bree Jackson: If I’m going for symbolic, I take attributes of the character (ie: strength, beauty, resilience,etc…) and translate those words into different languages. Then I derive a name from the word that works best. In other instances, I’ll ask my beta reader group silly questions like “I need a name that isn’t Chad to describe a gym bro guy who looks like he lives off of wheatgrass and unseasoned chicken.” The results are entertaining and useful.

Chris Pocase: There were two methods I used to use when coming up with character names. The first one was to take two Latin words and sort of splice them together to make a name. But I plan to rename those characters since the combinations can be fun to come up with but difficult to pronounce.

The other method…use Google Maps and pick a random place in the USA, and look at street names. There are some really interesting ones especially in rural areas

Kay Lee: Sounds weird but I feel like my characters name themselves lol. Based on the personality of that character names that seem like a fit just kind of come into mind and make sense.