For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing some research, plotting out certain base elements of the next book (Driving the Spike) and making damn sure the whole thing makes sense. In my notes, however, I’ve referred to the main characters as Brother A, Brother B and Brother C. Obviously that won’t work. Despite the fact that I’d already fleshed out enough of these three characters to know how old they are, what their likes/dislikes are and even how they view the world, I still hadn’t given them any names.
The naming of characters–for me, at least–can be difficult. Unless I’m killing off a former boss in one of my stories, coming up with names is like giving birth. (This assumes, of course, I know what giving birth is like.) And if I’m not totally satisfied with a character’s name, I will likely change it several times. Sure, I can just use a “REPLACE” function in my favorite word processor (and I’ve done that before), but changing the name of a character means I didn’t get to know them as well as I thought I had. For me, that’s a problem; I must know my characters so well, I become them.
Like many writers, I have tools: the obligatory baby name book, the Interwebz and its various search engines, the person sitting next to me, the dog. I have used all of these tools and yet still rarely come up with a name I am satisfied with on the first or second or even fifth try. I don’t know why that it, except, perhaps, because I am a an unhappy writer with a high threshold for satisfaction.
Last night, I was finally able to give the three Brothers in Driving the Spike some names. I wrote them down–first, middle, last–and felt pretty confident they would work.
It was no surprise, then, that they all came alive in that one moment, begging me to begin their story.
This is a short blog post, but in reality, I’m interested to know how other writers come up with names. Are they fresh from experience or are they carefully strung together because of theme or genre? What say you, writers of better fiction than I: how do you pick out names?
Names are difficult, and I completely agree that having the names up front is critical in getting to know the characters. For me, the names of my characters – the main ones at least – generally exist before the story has come to life in my head. Where they come from, I don’t know, but once I have a character named, I know who that person is – the name generally makes the person – I know their height, weight, skin tone, eye color, hair color, the size of their feet, and even their quirks just from that name.
I have a habit of using random name generators just to see what comes up, and it isn’t always when I need the name.
My dog, however, hasn’t offered up many good ones thus far, but since you mentioned it, I might just try asking him from time to time.
Good luck in all that you do, Benjamin. I enjoy reading your blogs and they generally make me smile, and at times they help me to process some things that I’ve been trying to work through.
Yay! Someone enjoys reading this blog!
I agree with you: a name makes the person, and I know if I don’t have the name right, the character won’t behave in the appropriate way.
I often use the first name of friends or a reader who enjoy previous works. They love it– even if the character turns out to be a badguy. It also assures a few sells because they will be sure to tell their friends.
Names are one of the top three things of importance in a novel. You want people to remember them.
I rarely use names of friends, but I have used the names of enemies. I guess it won’t encourage them to buy something I’ve written, though. I was going to go on and on in the post about names that are remembered even now: Hester Prynne, Captain Ahab, Ebenezer Scrooge, Tom Joad. Yes, names are so very important.
I find names from a variety of places. Sometimes as in the case of Apocowlypto Trisha (the main character) was a name that I had always liked. I actually remembered this from when I was 11 or some such nonsense. But usually it’s a name that just appears to me. The ones I like the best are the ones that come with a description of the character which usually happens out of the blue. I’m not even going to say that I hope this helps because most of my writing is out of the blue/divinely inspired/dumb luck.
I do have some characters in upcoming novels that have names based partially in history like one first name from a famous author and the last name from another famous person. I did that once with a character called David Wilde years ago but I didn’t notice it was David Bowie and Oscar Wilde until a friend pointed it out!
I thought the characters in Driving the Spike should have “patriot” names, given the slight political tone in some of the chapters. However, “Paine” didn’t sound right, and “Arnold” or “Jefferson” was just too obvious to me. I once wrote a novel with names culled from people I knew, but then I started to hate my own characters.
Interestingly, Maggie (the main character in Castles: A Fictional Memoir of a Girl with Scissors), is a name that was given to me by the voice in my head who actually wrote the book. I didn’t have a choice.
For my main WIP I used a website of biblical names and their meanings. I wanted each name to reflect their personality and role within the story. For a second WIP I pulled the names out of my ass. Each way seems to give me the names I want.
That’s awesome! I used biblical names for my first book (that has never been released), then filled them in again with names I pulled out of thin air because I didn’t like the original names. Sometimes, I wonder if Steinbeck was ever happy with “Joad” as a last name.