Young Writers Society

i have four villans.
one is tough (boy)
the other has a tough front(boy)
one is too sweet (painfully)(girl)
and the last is pure evil (girl)

ive tried to think of good well suited names but nothings working!

Okey dokey...

Nobody can do this for you. Seriously. If these villains are important to the story, they need to be completely your own.

Also, we don't know the genre of this story--we could suggest a name like Bob in a fantasy novel.

Only you can create names for these characters, because only you know the specifics of your book, and know if a name works or not.

Well, names are very tricky, but what I often do is go to babynames.com.
Then you could find a name that means something to do with your villain.
For example, One of my Characters if called Elroy, which means the King, because he... is the king.
Well, you get the idea.

Tough boy: Bob
Faux-tough boy: Joe-Bob
Sweet girl: Anne
Evil girl: Mary-Anne

Tremble in fear.

(Hey, with nothing to go on that's the best I can do. My advice: sit down with a notepad and try writing out loads of different names until you find one that feels 'right' for the character.)

behindthename.com
The single best name resource ever. Arabic or Welsh names seem particularly dastardly.

My only other advice: At all cost, avoid using the sound "mor". It's been done before, and you automatically KNOW that character's a bad guy.

That, and the name Valentine.

Kang227 wrote:we could suggest a name like Bob in a fantasy novel.

Why couldn't someone in a fantasy novel be called Bob? It's a bit cliched to give all your fantasy characters fancy names.

Your characters do have to be your own; take a look at baby naming websites, have fun looking at all the different names and experiment to find one that fits.

Some of the best names for the bad guy is the names that seem unassuming or not ominous...

I have a "pure evil" character. Her name is Rachael - meaning "innocent lamb." You could try something like that.

Making up the names is one of the most fun parts of being a writer, i think!
So just take your time, and allow yourself to get inspired(from whatsoever!).

For villians I just pick names I don't like...e.g: Blake, Adam, Drake.

Or if someone was mean to me from my childhood I just pick their first name...e.g: Jim, Ben, Rory...

Valentine doesn't have to be an evil name. I just finished a book in which the main hero holds that name. He's a sunny, caring person,kl and the name suits him. Although I also know of villains with that name.

Just goes to show you how portrayal of character can influence the name, as well as vice versa.

Just like Kang227 said, you're the only one who can give names to your own characters. You need to know your character before you name him/her (or vice versa) and we can't really help because we don't know what the characters are like. But don't go with Nero - it means "genius" in Finnish ;D

Nero is also a notorious roman emporer, so it does have evil contations, but probably not the type your going for.