Young Writers Society

My aunt told me this. For any name first or last, look in the bible. Take a name and fiddle with it. It works for me.

Now that I come to think about it, names seem to come really easily to me. My extreme exposure to lots of things such as books, magazines, newspapers, heck even chocolate wrappers (anything with words) might have something to do with it (dunno ).

I suspect it's mostly my imagination though. After all, it is endless and there are twenty four letters just waiting to be used. Imagination is probably a key to it. Try finding an existing name and 'modifying' it.

Hehe, yay! I'm not alone! Somebody else who sucks at names is here. *huggles*

Anyway, I too suck at last names, but I try to avoid them as much as possible. For instance, in FREAK, there's a character there who is just known as Sadie's father, or, if you're being formal to him, just "sir" or "the master." So yeah. I avoided his last name, which was pretty awesome.

If I *need* a last name, I will look at this website: 20,000 Names. Anyway, that site not only has first names, but names that used to be first names but are now last names. Exceedingly helpful, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, hope that helps!

I work at a law office, so I just snatch a last name from client files. It's kinda fun actually. Choose a first name and then mix and match with client names until you've got a character.

-Kylan

I anagram things. Everything from the main characters' names to chapter titles to theme words to what they ate for breakfast. And then if I'm just trying to fill in a name rather than say something about the character, I'll switch in letters to make it sound better or correlate to a specific ethnicity.

I usually use this site. I've used the given name version for years, but admittedly only recently discovered the surname section. It's most excellent, and I highly recommend it.

Sometimes I'll use last names I already know, of course, but only if I don't personally know anyone with that last name. (I used my best friend's last name once, and it was too weird; I kept thinking of the character as my friend, and writing her as being like my friend, and it was just weird.)

I don't tend to give my characters surnames, I have enough bother trying to find first ones for them.

Two of my characters do though, they were taken from a memorial plate I saw in a friends church.

I should probably give the others names too.

I grab the nearest phone book and tell people to pick a letter. Then if I still can't decide, I make them pick another letter.

I find that I have to know my chracter before I know my character's last name. Some characters don't need last names, so make sure you know your character before you decide wether or not to give them a last name. Then, once you decide that your character needs a last name, think about your character's personality. Are they average? Are they powerful? Are they pure evil? Think about their characteristics, rack your brain for all the names you can come up with for that personality trait, write the names down on paper, and choose the one you like best.

Usually, I just try to find a first/last name combo that sounds alright. Sometimes there will be deeper meaning behind it, other tiimes no such luck. At any rate, the character will grow into it, if I'm lucky.

Anybody who's seen my character names knows that they are very random. They're completely made up. As far as last names go, I just pick something that I think sounds good with the first name.

1. I've gone to those name sites to locate a meaningful surname.

2. Cemeteries.

You asked.

Mmm... I just combine two objects. Use the first two or three letters of the first word and the last two or three letters of the second word.

Examples:
1. Fire + chocolate = Filate (fee-late) [Feel free to make your own pronunciates, by the way. There are different ways to say a word. ]
2. Jewelry + parents = Jents (gents)
3. Light + Toy = Ligy (liggy [lol])
3. Unicorns + school = Unicool [Or if you don't like the name, you can always just use the other letters in the word] So if you don't like Unicool, you can find things like: Nicol (nickle), Incus, Coco, Linkos (link-us), etc...

Anyhow, you get my point. Hope that helps! G'luck.

~Syd

Syddles, I like how you do that!
*toddles off to some remote corner with her notebook*

If it's a fantasy, it just comes. Randomly.

If it's just fiction, I flip through the phonebook or just keep my ears open. Encyclopedias are fun too!

Just look at the masthead of any magazine.

Some people, like me, want perfect names. You know, like the movie star-potential surnames. But not everyone is perfect, and neither are their names.

Which is where the phonebook comes in handy, like Pacific said.