Names for your characters

Phone books and old yearbooks, when I was a kid. These days I also sometimes use baby name books, but so many of the names in those are too modern and funky for most of my characters. Other times the name will occur to me in a dream or just when I'm waking up, but if I'm having a hard time I use one of the above mentioned resources to kind of get me thinking. I like using the name books because I like to know what the names actually mean, and in a way doing that helps me shape the character better.

I had a dream job for names for a long time. I worked in an office where putting names in the computer all day was my job! LOL I retired a few yrs ago, but I've never really had a naming problem I do know a gal that couldn't think of a name so, since she knew a family by the name anyway, she called him "Blank."

Baby name books and websites are great. Not only do they supply you with names you might never have thought of by yourself, they also give you the meanings of those names. So you can add an extra layer of meaning by giving your characters names that are appropriate to them. To be honest though I have never had any real trouble naming my characters. The name always just seems to occur to me as part of my whole concept of the character. Sometimes with minor characters I have to think about it a bit more, because I don't have a clear idea of their personality. In that case, I try to think of names which are appropriate to their age and social status. You can usually get an idea of which names certain types of people tend to have by thinking about people you know, people on TV, stories in newspapers, etc. Actually that is another major thing I would recommend, to always read a newspaper. They are good for plots as well as names!

I just think of what the character is, and I decide, well he is a Bob. I usually when I start a story consider what nationality the character is from, his background, and his country. I try not to go with odd or weird names so no one can say, 'how exotic1' so I am apt to say Hans Schmidt if he is German. When the character is of a certain country, I check to see what the common names of that country are, and if the character is forceful, try to find a forceful name. So it all depends on the character.

well you can look into history books that no one reads and find names there, just mix and match till you have good combinations, or just try and think of names yourself by taking the names or people around you and changing them slightly so that they sound good to the book, plus it all depends on what tipe of book you are writing to what kind of names to use

I have several different methods for naming my characters. Some names just come to me, like magic. :D Not very helpful as writing advice, but still. Other characters I decide on what letter I would like the name to start with, often to even it out a bit. For instance, if I already have two characters whose names start with N, I try and pick another letter to start the name with. That narrows it down a bit. The last method is probably the best, and most fun to do. I think about the character, what personality he or she has, where she's from, heritage...things like that. Then I look for names from that area, or with a meaning that appeals to the character. E.g. one of my characters is a red-haired, ex-military man from Ireland. He's named Clancy, which is an Irish name that means Red Haired Warrior. (or something like that. I forget. XD) A great site to look at is http://www.behindthename.com You can search by meaning, letter, gender, origin and find names that derived from another name. I use it all the time!

Yes, the best advice is not to have two characters' names beginning with the same initial. I had a father and son (10 year old) with the same first initial and found myself getting the two mixed up, so I changed the kid's name. For the names in my current novel, the two main character's names, I used names that represented who they were. Eva because she is innocent and naive, and Doyle because he is "dark". Dark plays a large role in this story. The name Doyle means dark and it is also a strong sounding name. I used a baby name book to find these. Another method I have heard people use is the obituaries in the newspaper, or walking through a cemetery.

to avoid nasty law suits by people whose names you may use, try using city or town names, Biblical names or street names.