Young Writers Society

I'm in a bit of a jam if you will, with naming my latest protagonist. I want a name, (or two names if you put them together as a first and last name) that mean either ''new light' or 'new future' or 'he who rises from shadows'. The closest thing I've come is Asher Phoenix. The name Asher means 'happy' and Phoenix is a bird that rises or is reborn so if you put the two together (and ignore the 'mythical bird' bit') it means 'happiness reborn' Which suits my purpose (and my protagonists character arch), but I'm worried it's is already taken, plus, I'm just not satisfied with 'the ring to it'.
Do you guys think the name works, if not, then do you have any suggestions or advice?

I really like going to google translate and play with kanjis, so while doing that i came up with these:
Miki Hikari (未来= Mirai (future), but 未 can be read as Mi and 来 as Ki, and Hikari is literally light)
Shin Kibō (Literally "New hope")

Or you could make some sort of anagram with the words of the meaning you wanna give.
But to be honest, when the names i use are not japanese or chinese i use a site called FantasyNameGenerator and then use google to see the meaning of the names that call my attention

I like that name! It does seem a little familiar, although that might just be because there’s someone named Phoenix Ashby who goes to my school xD. I do have one name suggestion for you if you decide not to use that one. It is Xavier Doughty. Xavier means “bright” or “new”. Doughty means “powerful” or “brave”. I hope this can help you!

Piggybacking off VioletFantasy's suggestion of Xavier, perhaps you could go with Xavier Lux? The name "Lux" means light, and I think it sounds really cool paired with Xavier.

Ooooh, good idea @Kassiani!

I'll just put out some suggestions I got from some sources for naming characters in general. Maybe you can try these guidelines to make your names more memorable :0

-Follow your gut.

Like, I see these writers spending their waking hours preoccupied with what to name their characters, and I'm sitting here like, man. There are way bigger things to worry about, bigger things that you could imbue with meaning than your characters' names, like the story itself (which is the most important).

So, the name that you most strongly resonate with right now, go with it no matter what it is. Because sometimes your gut is right and your confidence in it will legitimize the name you picked for the character in the eyes of your audience.

(Besides, if you think about it, nobody really cares about such trivial things unless your story is so good. You've got to earn that interest of the audience before they become so charmed that they find your character's name's etymology interesting enough to be amazed by or to be worth examining.)

-Make it catchy.

Billie Eilish, Donald Trump, Miley Cyrus, Bob Ross. There's a reason why stage names and politician names are short and memorable. So that's a guideline.

-Misspell it.

The Neil Gaiman book was supposed to be named Caroline instead of Coraline, if not for that typo of his. But he stuck with it because Coraline was memorable. There aren't any mistakes in this world--just happy little accidents :>>

You mentioned if the name is already taken, that's a losing battle The chance of naming your character something that has never been used is just not going to happen, and that's okay! Unless you're going the Elon Musk route and naming your character a bunch of random letters and numbers, it will have been used before. But people like familiarity and your character can be unique in many different ways besides just their name.

For specific name meanings, I'd try going to baby name websites. You can usually search for names based on a meaning and that might give you some ideas of things to put together. But ultimately pick a name you like, that you can pronounce, and that you can type relatively easily - you're going to have to see it and type it a whole lot