The Lamest Way to Name Characters
I know that there are some people here who come up with all these strange ways of naming characters. Sometimes they think, “ZOMG*, my character is a hunter, therefore I shall name him… Hunter! No wait… Orion! No wait…Kdjsaha!” And they just come up with these ridiculous names and it is slightly horrible.
1) Too obvious. I mean, that would be like me saying, “The hairdresser’s name is… Hairdresser.” Come on peoples!
2) Yeah… just beat me over the head with symbolism and watch my brain ooze out of my ears.
3) Please, do not bash your head on the keyboard. Writing is painful enough without that sort of physical abuse.
Of course, I, being a terrible writer, have a different, equally horrible way of naming characters. Instead of saying, “ZOMG, THAT NAME IS SO COOL!” I think, “What is the stupidest name I can think of?” For instance, in my main project right now, I have a character who is called Beth. Why? Because I think that name sounds stupid. I also think the name “Claude” sounds stupid. It’s waaaaay too French for even me. So usually I pick these really horrible names. The results? Well, I actually have to concentrate on developing the character, since their names are so stupid and lame that they can’t give anything away or distract the reader from the plot by being completely outlandish and weird.
Weird idea? Probably. But keep it in mind when you’re dealing with character names.
* And ZOMG is totally a word. Really. It means, “Oh my God, I sound like a complete idiot!” if you want the actual translation of it.
June 27th, 2008 at 8:26 am
I actually sort of like your method.
*Sob* My pastor’s name is Beth! And she had her second child yesterday! WAAA!!!
***
But yeah, that’s why my character, Elizabeth, hates it when people shorten her name to “Beth”.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Ha. I spend hours looking for names. And when I finally find the perfect one, and after it sticks to the characters like a bad smell, I find out it has weird connotations. What? Émon sounds like “Amen?” Myron was a famous accordian player? André is a guy’s name? ZOMG!
June 27th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Hey! My school secretary’s name is Beth! ‘Tis not stupid!
Nah, I see where you are coming from. I totally have done the “name the hairdresser ‘Hairdresser’” thing. Seriously.
Have you ever given a character a name before, just totally out of the blue, and then when you looked up that name, it actually meant your character’s greatest trait? I’ve totally done that before, with no forethought or foreheadkeyboard sessions.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
S’okay Snoink. I think Beth is a weird name too. xD
I keep a notebook of names I like a lot for boys and the one for girls. It’s handy dandy. And a lot of the boy names work for last names too! But it takes a lot of time and effort to write them all down.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:47 am
GryphonFledgling: Sort of… I was look for a physical deformity for the character that would be Claude, picked the name Claude, and then realized that Claude was the French version of Claudius who was a lame, but powerful emperor of Rome. So I made Claude lame.
June 28th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Whoa whoa whoa. First of all–Hunter is a cool name.
Second of all…I don’t…really..have a second.
June 28th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Drives me crazy when people name their characters as if they’re in a Japanese anime. No, there is no kid in the continental United States named “Aiko”.
Neither is there anyone named “Aesura”. This isn’t World of Warcraft…
June 29th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Actually, I know an Aiko!
Admittedly, he just moved here from Japan…
June 29th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Hunter is cool only when it is you. Otherwise, it epic-fails.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Lol, I like your way of picking names, though I opt for the keep-a-list-of-names-in-case-you-need-to-find-one-for-your-character way.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Dude! My middle name’s Beth and it’s my mom’s middle name too! Ouch, you just hit my emotions right in the gut!
Yeah, I see the cliche naming stuff too.
July 6th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Actually, if you think about it, the name shouldn’t say as much about the character whose name it is as that character’s parents. If the parents are very traditional/boring, they’d give very traditional/boring names to their kids. Of course, if the kid has a nickname that they like to go by (or if, for some strange name, they named themself) then that (nick)name would say something about the character.
July 10th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Azila - that’s what I think about when I name characters. In my current story, the twins’ mom was a little cuckoo, so all of her kids are named after birds (Corbin, Falco, etc…). That pun, by the way, was totally unintended.
I have to admit that I name characters way more by what the name sounds like than what it actually means. In fact, doing it the other way around is sort of backwards to me. It’s kind of tough for me to explain this in a tangible way, but it’s sort of like… if a character has a harsh, rugged personality, I’m more likely to give them a pointy-looking name with a lot of stop-consonants, whereas I might name a baby squirrel Roo-roo or something equally round and fuzzy sounding.
Like, “Beth,” for example, sounds like a kind of reserved name. Someone who’s kind of quiet, not really very athletic, likes to curl up with a good book. I wouldn’t name the auburn-haired Amazon warrioress type “Beth.”
July 13th, 2008 at 5:40 am
ZOMG, you have a point there!
July 14th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I like Bittersweet’s idea of keeping a list of names. *thoughtful* I should try that…
And (on the ‘Aiko’ thing) I know a Kyo and a Yuki. They live in Tennessee. Yes, smorgishborg, they’re exchange students from Tokyo. But they *do* live in the continental U.S.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
“my character is a hunter, therefore I shall name him… Hunter!” I have a cousin named Hunter…and he’s a hunter…>.>
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I see what you mean about naming a hairdresser “Hairdresser” (haha) but sometimes that kind of thing can actually turn out kinda cool, like in the book Neverwhere, the girl who can open doors (but much cooler than opening, say, the back door) is named Door. Most memorable name ever, I think.