Young Writers Society

It is so hard coming up with names for characters. Especially when it's fantasy and you have to make up unusual names for people, lands, cities, and landmarks. I have over sixty characters in my book in which most of their names are completely made up. I have so many cities and land marks that I've lost count. How about you? Do you find it fun or what?

I circumvent that two ways. xD

1- Less characters. If they're not important, or only have a minor roll, they don't get named or only have a name pulled quickly. It keeps readers from having to remember a billion characters, because I can't really characterize a ton of characters to the point people will connect with all of them.

2- No to minimal made-up names. I stick to names from the region I'm basing my world off of, to keep them somewhat pronounceable. I also make sure names don't really go over three or four syllables. Else it gets a bit complicated to say.

Past that, really I just keep a baby name book beside my writing space and flip through it whenever I need a name. If I can't find a longer name, I shorten it in a nickname.

I just give them random names. If I give them a purposful name, it doesn't seem realistic. If I don't like the name, then too bad. I didn't have a choice in my name.

I have the same problem. If I can't come up with a fitting name withing about five seconds, I just write down whatever their position is (peasant, blacksmith, knight, etc.) and change the font color, so that it'll be something I can come back to when I edit, instead of getting my writing flow bogged down.

That's really good advice Rnager I never thought to do that. I usually just stop writing and sit there staring at the screen until I come up with something.