Advice on creating character names Archives

If you’ve followed JPC Allen Writes for very long, you know I love names and finding the perfect ones for my characters. For my cozy mystery series, finding character names in the Bible helped me create and organize my characters.

Make Characters Distinct

When I wrote “A Rose from the Ashes”, I had two families of three kids. To help the reader keep the families straight, I chose Bible names for the Malinowski family since I introduce them in a scene set at a church. But I didn’t want to pick popular Bible names–too generic. So I went with Aaron and Micah–and he’s called Micah, not Mike. The third kid in that family has a non-Bible name, but that’s because he has a family name.

One of the most helpful tips I’ve read on naming was in an early edition of Beyond Jason and Jennifer. The authors discussed how parents tend to select similar style names. Parents who name a son Richard are unlikely to pick Rainbow for their daughter. And a girl named Harvest probably won’t have a brother named John.

So, since the Malinowski kids had Bible names, I thought Bible names would make sense for other members of their family. Their grandmother is Lydia and her sister is Martha.

Make Characters Unique

If you want a character to stand out, choose a Bible name that’s been overlooked. Just make sure it’s easily pronounceable. Not many characters are name Adonijah, and there’s a reason for that. I picked Reuel to be the middle name of the Malinowski family name that’s passed from father to son. It’s easy to sound out and it’s not used much–unless you write epic fantasy.

Another approach to finding character names in the Bible is looking at places and words. I know of girls names Selah and Jubilee. You can also go the Puritan route and pick virtue names, like Truth or Providence. Jericho and Bethany have been used for awhile, but what about Sinai or Canaan or Kadesh?

What are your favorite names from the Bible? Has the Bible inspired you to name a child or a character?

If you’ve followed my blog for very long, you know I love names–their history, their meaning, and finding just the right one for a character. In many kinds of fantasy and science fiction stories, authors have the luxury, or the problem, of inventing names. Below are three sources for names in speculative fiction. Just remember The Golden Rule for Creating Names in Fiction: it must be easily pronounceable.

World Myths

Perusing world myths is a great way to find names, especially if you read the ones that are less well-known, like Slavic or Celtic.

GREEK AND ROMAN NAMES

Atalanta
Meander
Dido
Alecto
Evander
Nisus
Marsyas
Thetis
Arion
Leander
Cadmus
Maia
Nysa

NORSE NAMES

Sif
Idun
Galar
Brokk
Alvis
Gerd
Thiazi
Skadi

CELTIC NAMES

Balor
Bran
Branwen
Bres
Dagda
Morrigan
Caradoc
Finntan
Korrigan
Mael Duin
Nemed
Nuada
Veleda

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

Sadko
Morevna
Perun
Mati Syra
Kurent

Field Guides

Because my oldest is the Nature Nut, we have all kinds of field guides laying around our house. By flipping through them, I’ve discovered all sorts of names that would blend right into any speculative fiction story. In a field guide on birds, I found Calidris, Striatus, Thula. Asio, Strix, and Zenaida. Tyto Albo is the name for barn owls. It also sounds like a great name for the hero of an epic. If I change it to Tyta Albo or Alba Tyto, I have a heroine. If a scientific name sounds–well, too scientific, play with it like I did with Tyto Albo, leading me to the next tip, which is …

Play with Familiar Names

I take a name like Olivia and write it backwards, Aivilo. That’s easy to pronounce for any English reader–Ay-vil-o. But some one might notice I used Olivia backwards. So I change it to something like Raivilo or Ailvilor. You can honor friends by naming characters with disguised versions of their names or hold a contest for readers and disguise the winner’s name.

Writers, what sources do you use for names in speculative fiction? Readers, what are the best names you’ve read in speculative fiction?

Last week I wrote about the Golden Rules for naming characters. Today I will dig into the art of creating character names. Names can do more than label characters. They can be quick ways to define relationships, provide backstory, and above all, add another layer of reality to our fiction.

Choose Variety

In my YA mystery short story, “A Rose from the Ashes”, I had to name a lot of characters in a small amount of narrative space. Selecting names from a variety of different languages helped me differentiate between characters and aided readers in keeping the cast straight. My story is set in rural, southeast Ohio. 90-95% of the population is descended from European immigrants. Having lived in the area, I knew what languages I could pick from to create believable names.

My main character is searching for her father and has three candidates. I had to make those male characters distinct. One way was to give them last names from three different languages, Irish, English, and Polish. So I came up with O’Neil, Carlisle, and Malinowski.

In the U.S., English names can signify old money. I chose Carlisle as the last name for a wealthy businessman. He has three children, so I stuck to the English theme and named them Allison, Richard, and Sylvia.

The sheriff got the last name Malinowski and also has three kids. To keep the two sets of kids separate, I needed a different naming pattern. I introduce the Malinowski family at a church lunch, so I chose Hebrew names for the kids, Aaron and Micah. The oldest is called Rusty, which I will explain below.

Names provide backstory.

For some reason I can’t recall, I liked the idea of the sheriff going by the nickname Mal, based on his last name, Malinowski. That forced me to examine why he preferred a nickname to his first name. He probably hated his first name. What would be an awful first name for a Gen X guy? Walter seemed to fit the bill. But his mother is a character in the story, and she seems like a genuinely nice woman. Why would she saddle her son with a name like that? Because it’s a family name. So I created Walter R. Malinowski IV. His oldest son is called Rusty. It doesn’t take much thought from the reader to figure out why.

By digging deeper into the reason behind my name, I developed my characters.

Names define relationships.

The wealthy business man is Jason Carlisle and he has a brother Rick. Jason also has a son Richard. That tells the reader, without me explicitly saying so, that the brothers are close. I have a scene in which Jason teases Rick about his dating life and that demonstrates the kind of relationship they have, but the names are a quiet code that reinforces the idea.

Side Note: I just realized I violated my rule of not having names look alike with Rick and Richard. I’ll have to watch out for that.

Your turn. What names have you created for characters? Why? What memorable names have you come across in stories?

Tag: Advice on creating character names

Finding Character Names in the Bible