Young Writers Society

Those were good ideas about the phone book and blending two names together. I can find first names easily but I always have trouble with last names.

Ah, names. I've always loved naming characters and places. Its one of my favorite parts of writing.

If its a person's name, think of their appearance and their demeanor. Then, whatever name or sound comes to mind can be used.

For example: My character is blonde, green eyed, freckley, young, and innocent. I think of Lissa or Hallie or Celie.

With last names, just come up with your own. Last names don't have to be very well known, so just pick one that flows with the first name.

For example: Celie Sanders, Lissa Melina, Hallie Reed.

For city/country/make-believe world names you can do one of two things: If its a city, you can use any old name and make it into a city by adding -ville, -ton, or borough. For completely new countries or worlds, think of your place and what its like. Let the image of it inspire you. You can start off with simple sounds and then build if you like.

For example: My country is a very industrial place full of poverty and slavery, and there is a gap between the very rich, and the very poor. Steam and metal and oil come to mind.... I'll let you finish this one!

I've always had issues with names, especailly because i have a thing agaisnt 'normal' and simple names (although i must say i do have a soft spot for any female names starting with E) Resently while i was sick in bed i made a list of all my favourite names, simple or not and im just picking the ones that best suit my Character's. It means I can focus more on the details of my Characters. For last names I either use the phone book or last names of people i know that reminds me of my characters.

If you want names, go to http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
this has anything you need for fantasy or sci-fi names, for ships, people, elves, giants, ogres, cities, countries. It is a great site.

These are great ideas! I think I'll try the phone book one. And also I've been to the Seventh Sanctum website-great creation. ^_^

Ani May Queen Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:32 pm Post subject: Names with meaning

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I always look for names with a certain meaning that describes my character. For example since the name "Jason" means "healer" if I named a character Jason he would probably be some sort of healer (Duh, that was an obvious one)

How do you find out what a name means?

......Never mind. I shouldn't have skimmed the posts..

i think about people who are important to me, or i think of a name, and make it into an unusual name, at the mo im writing a story and the main characters are Mystery(came from Mysti, at first, mysti was her nickname) Liberty(from libby) Marthina(origionally Martha, put to gether with martina) and Maylisse (origionally May-ellise, but thought it was more interesting) the characters ar witches, so i thought that unusual names would be good

I use my phone book to make one of my desk's legs higher.

But it is not serving a better use, sitting on my desk rather that under it.

RR*

If I want to have an exotic name in a fantasy story, coming up with one is usually pretty challenging for me. Though, I don't think it's always necessary to start from scratch--I found a department (portion of a country) in France that had a cool-sounding name, so I used that as a name for one of my characters.

The type of naming I find easiest is assigning "regular" first names to my characters. Last names are difficult... As people have said, phone books are good. The biographical tidbits in my science textbooks have come in handy as well, lol. And there are also genealogical websites that have a lot of last names listed.

Other than what some of the others have said, sometimes taking any common name and writing it backwards can give you a cool and unique name, especially for fantasy themes.

As always,

Miss POKE

i sometimes look up chinese, japanese, korean names on google i usually get loads of cool ones, and they sometimes have cool meanings to them

Im one of many that puts little importance into the names of my characters. In fact in my most recent novels there is an entire civilisation that lives with no names and communication is based on job titles. SO the Nurse is called Nurse, Doctor is Doctor etc...

However in most fiction its what ever seems right. I sometimes name characters after objects and animals. Like Raptor and my newest character: Carrion ( a dead body). He is named so because he turns out to be exactly his name: a rotting piece of filth.

I like to use Japanese or Chinese names. They usually work with the flow of my stories, but I change a few...

~ Roxy ~

http://names.mongabay.com/most_common_surnames.htm

That's were I go. It's for names in the USA, though, so if your character is from Japan or something, I can't help you. (The only name I know from Japan in Yumiko.)

On that site you can find very common names or uncommon names. You can search alphabetically. You can search last names, female names, or male names. It's awesome!

Also, you can try writing down a list of all the fist names and last names of the people you work with/go to school with. Then pick a first name and a last name, combine them, and you've got a name.

Also, the reader doesn't need to know the full name of everyone, especially in short stories. For a side character, first names are usually sufficient. If they're really unimportant, no name is needed.

I like Japanese names too. In particular, I like names like Riku and Kiba. (both anime characters)

I know "Riku" means "land," "Kiba" means "fang."