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Monolith's thread about his character's name got me thinking...
The names of my characters usually just pop into my head and work well-- until recently. So, I'm just curious about where you find your character's names. Are they all made up? Do you have favorite links you use? (Thanks for the great ones in the previously mentioned thread!) Baby books?
And do you pronounce them out loud, or try them out on a friend? (I try my kids names out before they're born by yelling the full name like they're in deep doo-doo. )
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I try to keep some kind of "ethnical balance." No because of any political correctness on my part, but because I like to vary the "sounds" of my name, so that it doesn't sound like all my characters are named Ted Franklin and Mike Johnson.
I browse International White and Yellow pages, take a first name here, find a lst name that sounds good with it until I get to an interesting sound. I find myself with a lot of Eastern European names for some reason, but I think it's refreshing to have African or far/middle-eastern names.
I also think it works well in SF. We are going toward the Global Village, and so a name like Deepali Pitampura doesn't sound as odd as, say, if you stuck in in 1800's America.
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LOL!! After you said that about naming your kids I tried it out with my three's names. Yeah! We did pretty good! Nice rhythms at high volume!
I'm double recommending that site I mentioned on Monolith's thread. It is a font of names, thousands of names, their meanings, derivatives, unusual and cultural names. Great site. It's www.behindthename.com.
I found a book in the library recently, though I can't remember the title. It was a writer's resource book that listed names by meaning, so if you had a character that you wanted to give a significant name you could find one. It also had many unusual names. Wish I could remember the title. Sorry.
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I write the first name that comes to mind when first introducing a character, and it usually sounds just right. If not, I use Word's Find/Replace tool to...well, find and replace it. Some writers speak of a bond between themselves and a character's name, but I just go with what sounds okay. For example, for my WIP, my protagonist's name is Ethan, because that's the name that came to me when first writing his name. His best friend's name is Rock (don't know why, though; it's highly likely I'll change it), his adopted sister's name is Kara, adopted father's name is Ayorn, mother=Merra, guardian=Terrick, and so on, and so on. The names sometime come to me, and sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't.
thats the site I use for the most part, i usually write fantasy, so a huge list of names to mix and mach with makes finding names easy, or i just tell my roomies to throw a name at me untill i'm happy, they hate when I do that though.
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Found it. First Name Reverse Dictionary: Given Names Listed by Meaning, by Yvonne Navarro.
I use these name sources for inspiration. I almost never us a name as given. I take a name I like and tweak it a little to make it my own. Sometimes I borrow from people around me--like a little boy in primary whose name is Darrian. Love that name. Or my daughter's viola teacher's last name is Sova--great first name for a female character.
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Something that helps me with characterization is to base characters on people I know. I'll use part of the person's name or initials. Sometimes I'll rearrange the letters to see what comes out. For example, in one of my WIP the main villian is based on a guy I went to grade school with I rearranged a couple of letters and came up with Ytler.
Other times I know what I want my characters to be like and then I find a name with that meaning. Something like Rex or Fritz for a leader, etc.
Sounds interesting, but too close to Hitler. I'd get a bad opinion of that character. It sounds evil. I tend to stay away from names that call on themselves with such a heavy baggage. People might think you are deliberately using a name like this for a message. Don't forget readers bring their own cultural luggage when they set up house in your world. You can never, even in SF and F, disassociate yourself entirely from your own culture.
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In my story, Ytler is an evil prince who murders his father and tries to have his older brother assassinated so that he can become king.
The name came from Tyler who was a real jerk in elementary school (I guess I carry a lot of baggage too ) I've thought about the Ytler/Hitler thing but in the context of the story the association works.
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I really like Tarmigan, the name makes me curious, is there a similarity between Ptarmigan and your antagonist? I see her as a short fat woman with a small head who can't decied if she prefers her naturally white hair or a more youthful shade of brown.
[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited July 16, 2004).]
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You remembered the name of a "real jerk" from elementary school? Wow. Remind me not to get on your bad side.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Kickle, ROFL!! It would be hilarious if the character actually is like that! I wonder how many readers will actually know what a ptarmigan is, though? *G*
Yes, my antagonist is basically named after the creature you were describing, but you've inspired me with the possibility of taking the similarities further than I'd intended. LOL!
I actually know a lady with the name "Tarmigan," though she is very nice and has no feathers-- that I know of!
Thanks for the feedback! (I'll mull those surnames over, Monolith...)
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I use my incomplete knowledge of Ancient Greek and Latin to come up with a name that I like and that means something, and then I start mixing the letters up. I've found it helps to have an idea of the ending for the name. Sometimes I make minor changes only, sometimes you can't recognise the name. Oh, and sometimes I take a directory and look for street names that I like (this only works in London, because the streets are named after places not people) and apply the same treatment. Or mythological people... Ex: A character who caused the death of someone the narrator loved. In Greek, death is Thanatos. I mix the letters a little, and come up with Thanendra, which admittedly has nothing much to do with the original word, but it did give me the seed. I think I had a character actually called Thanatos once... There's always the random keyboard treatment, too, with filling-in of missing letters...
Posts: 121 | Registered: May 2002
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While I was working for a Pizza joint, we had computers that kept the names on file. I got one of my best Fantasy name out of it. Someone had entered the name of the frat house Sigma Alpha Epsilon as (LOL) Sigma Alfa Ebselan.
That Ebselan stuck with me.
I also got a few other names from typos and misspelings, but that one still leaves me laughing
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DJVDakota, I can't even tell you how useful that link is to me for my current WIP. Okay, I can, it's really useful. A big part of the story is set in Haiti, and I needed plausible French names, and I want some of them to be symbolic, so the history and etymology (sp?) is a godsend. Exactly the resource I've been looking for. Thanks 8 billion.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Dec 2003
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How do we send the chocolate, Dakota? I wound up using that site for my additional Italian names in "The Shocking Affair...." I owe ya.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Jul 2003
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Okay, four chocolates on the way. They'll be in your mailbox in 7-10 business days if the mailman doesn't get to them first.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Back up a bit, I agree that "Ytler" is far too close in sound to Hitler, as that was my immediate correspondance ... so unless that's intentional ...
Posts: 295 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:In my story, Ytler is an evil prince who murders his father and tries to have his older brother assassinated so that he can become king. The name came from Tyler who was a real jerk in elementary school (I guess I carry a lot of baggage too ) I've thought about the Ytler/Hitler thing but in the context of the story the association works.
When I first wrote the story I was afraid the reference to the name Tyler would be too obvious -- that readers would think of it as a typo. The Hitler thing was mentioned the first time I had the story critiqued (about 8 years ago). The critiquer thought that was my intention and they liked the way it worked for the story. Now, it's difficult to imagine him as anything other than the evil Prince Ytler.
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I use names that sound good, but almost all the mnames I use--first names anyway--subtily refer to someone or have some hidden meaning. I called one character Ra-ra because my nephew called his sister that instead of Sarah when he was little. (Unfortunatly that name sounds too childish, I'll probably change it.) I have a story plan where I'll use characters Paul and Ruth, calling them that becasue they will have similar situatoins/characteristics of Paul and Ruth from the Bible stories. I try to put in some non-Western names for veriety and flavor. I often use words in French or Cebuano as names or parts of names. When I do that, usually only I see the link, but they work for me.
Posts: 79 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Cebuano is spoken primarily on the island province of Cebu. It is the primary language used in Cebu City and throughout the Cebu province. It is actually a variation of the Visayan (Bisaya) Language. The Cebu province is central to the Visayan region. Visayan and Cebuano are similar. 15,230,000 in the Philippines; about 24.4% of the population. Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Visayas and parts of Mindanao. Also in USA, including Hawaii.
The first is the most common and easiest. It is just a name that pops up that fits the character for any reason.
The second reason if more complicated but not always more useful. I sometimes like to use symbolic names such as variations of a word that describes the character or something like that.
I have never worried about character names, yet. I use whatever pops into my head. However, from time to time, as I'm reading others works, a character's name just doesn't work for me and may actually break me out of the moment. So, I've decided that I'll just try and make the names sound as though they work within the context of the tale.
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake, is a good place to see character names that are well tailored to the characters and the general ambience.
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Visayan, is the name given to the language family in the Visayas. Natives call the language Bisaya. Cebuano and Boholano are both the same thing as Visayan, generally speaking, but have small pronunciation differences that mean little if you know the differances, but confuse those who don't. The same applies to areas of Mindinao and the smaller Visayan islands.
Just never let anyone tell you that Cebuano is a dialect of Tagolog. Anyone saying that is Tagolog or misinformed. Cebuano is a seperate language. Thay are similar, like Portugiese and Spanish, but different. In fact, more people speak Cebuano from birth than Tagolog.
Back to the subject, In one story I used a character name of "Inano" for a short person. "Inano" means "midgit."
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I had an interesting thing happen with the names in my WIP. I have kind of had the idea for this novel since I was about thirteen, and when I was seventeen I couldn't think of a good name for the protagonist. I started just calling him Proty (short for protagonist) and now that has really become his name.
And then another interesting thing happened. Long ago I named the antagonist Rantham. Well, I recently came up with some rules for the character names in this society. Identical twins are super important, and their names reflect each other. Female twins are named with a vowel sound at both the beginning and end of the name, and one is the reverse spelling/sound of the other; i.e. Alithu has a twin sister named Uthila. The same goes for males except their names start and end with consonants. If a twin dies the surviving member modifies their name with a suffix: "ar" if male and "ra" if female. Non-twins names either begin with a consonant and end with a vowel or begin with a vowel and end with a consonant.
When I applyed these rules to my two characters who already had names, it gave me some back story for them automatically. I had been toying with the idea of having Proty have once been a twin but his twin died. Now according to my rules he was a singleton for sure. But the bad guy Rantham now had to be a twin. Since I knew he worked alone, that must mean his twin had died, so I changed his name to Ranthamar. This way of thinking of names in relation to character has opened up a lot of avenues for thought for me.
Obviously my rules won't work for you, but if you ever create a world from scratch, maybe try giving the names some rules as well. OSC did in his Homecoming saga.
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Interesting, but you made a little mistake. Rantham's twin would have been named...Mathnar. His birth name would have already indicated that his twin, Rantham, was dead.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Ha, ha! Great point! I'll have to change something then. Thanks for noticing that. I should have but I missed it. Which is why these forums are so great!
Posts: 818 | Registered: Aug 2004
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) I've thought about the Ytler/Hitler thing but in the context of the story the association works.
