Authors, how do you make names?

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

So I'm having difficulty making the names of characters, locations and things that have names in general. How do you guys make your character/location names? Do you guys google names with deep meanings, use random name generators or just make one up that sounds nice?

 

[Deleted member 45782]

I use baby naming sites for important characters. Parents flock to those sites hoping for good serious and accurate (or at least somewhat reliable) meanings of names right? So maybe safe to assume just a teensy bit that those name meanings are reliable (not really, but unless know the language, its something at least).

I also use mostly BehindTheName and BehindTheSurname.

If it wasn't an important character or a story I particularly don't care as much about, I would name them like how I name my previous fishes: crispy, crunchy, puppy...or in other words...Sam, Dan, Mike (minor characters in one of my stories).

 

[LoliGent]

I think of the theme of the work and figure out what kind of names can fit with it. My current age gap story is about reincarnation, specifically from a couple in medieval Europe reincarnated the modern day. So to connect both the past and present, I chose names that were once used in the past and survives today, albeit in a more modern form.

Hence:

Johansen > Johan
Lucile > Lucy
Gwendolen > Wendy

And I sometime use names that are from the medieval period but still used today like Margaret. Others are names that didn't survive into the modern world or are too specific to a certain time period like Achelyna and Persephone.

Not sure if you can use this advice, but I figured the theme of the work can help lead you to choosing a name that fits.

 

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

I think of the theme of the work and figure out what kind of names can fit with it. My current age gap story is about reincarnation, specifically from a couple in medieval Europe reincarnated the modern day. So to connect both the past and present, I chose names that were once used in the past and survives today, albeit in a more modern form.

Hence:

Johansen > Johan
Lucile > Lucy
Gwendolen > Wendy

And I sometime use names that are from the medieval period but still used today like Margaret. Others are names that didn't survive into the modern world or are too specific to a certain time period like Achelyna and Persephone.

Not sure if you can use this advice, but I figured the theme of the work can help lead you to choosing a name that fits.

Well this was enlightening, not really sure if Kasparov and Robinson are good noble family names in a magical superpower nation. Think it should be fine as the culture of the place is shifting from medieval to more modern.

 

[Williwonk]

https://www.nomesdefantasia.com/
is very useful for secondary characters, who you don't want to think of names, like city guards, citizens and more, the site is in Portuguese, but just translate, the names have nothing in Portuguese

There's even Lovecraft

 

[Emi_the_Fairy]

Depends on the setting. I'll consult naming sites like some have said for inspiration, particularly with culturally sensitive names. Others I'll just go off a vibe for what feels right for the character. I'll also consider themes and natures of the characters. For instance I have a character named Annie who has a basis in fire because of a leap from 'propane.'

It's pretty flexible in my opinion. Just...uh...don't ask me about how I make up alien names, because that's just a mess.

 

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

Depends on the setting. I'll consult naming sites like some have said for inspiration, particularly with culturally sensitive names. Others I'll just go off a vibe for what feels right for the character. I'll also consider themes and natures of the characters. For instance I have a character named Annie who has a basis in fire because of a leap from 'propane.'

It's pretty flexible in my opinion. Just...uh...don't ask me about how I make up alien names, because that's just a mess.

I actually do the opposite of that sometimes, I make a character name and then search up the meaning, then I base their backstory/abilities on it. Alien names I just smack my head on a keyboard
Ex: Overlord Ismackedmyheadsohardonmylaptop'skeyboardthatitcrashedandrestarted(truestory)

 

[CupcakeNinja]

So I'm having difficulty making the names of characters, locations and things that have names in general. How do you guys make your character/location names? Do you guys google names with deep meanings, use random name generators or just make one up that sounds nice?

Fantasy name generators. Names for all your fantasy characters.

Countless generators for countless names. Some say it's the best fantasy name generator site around, which is very humbling to hear.

www.fantasynamegenerators.com

 

[BenJepheneT]

I punch myself in the balls and record whatever comes out of my mouth. I then put it on replay and grab whatever sounds like a name from the recording.

 

[Biggest-Kusa-Out-There]

I will shamelessly repost the answer I gave to a similar thread someone made a few weeks ago:

Mix real names, flowers, precious stones, elements, animals, objects, tastes, fruits, vegetables, words in languages that don't exist in your fictional world, nicknames.

Examples

Kingdom:
Rose + England = Rosland.
Salt + France = Salrance.
Silver + Humans = Silman Kingdom.

World = Platinum + Turtle + Banana = Platurna (Weirdly sounds like Saturn)

Some may sound weak, but you can play around with it for a bit, mixing and matching words you would like the world/kindgom to represent and come up with a neat sounding word.

You can also name them with words you come up with, like Ra'za Maln or slap your keyboard and add vowels between consonants until something good comes out.

Qawefku (just slapped my keyboard lol) sounds like a city either in a desert or populated by a specific species/race in your world that would have a similar sounding language.

Wish it helps a little.

 

[TotallyHuman]

Often times, if I hear a name in a song with a plot similar to what I envisioned in a character, I'll call them that.
Other times, I'll either go for what sounds nice, or pull out Google translator and Latin names out

 

[ThatOne]

Japanese name generator or i base it off of stuff i already know about. For example, I used Azur as a name for one of my characters, i got it from Azur Lane because I've seen SO MANY FUCKING ADVERTISEMENTS

 

[Reborn_Cat]

I type something in google translate and randomly pick languages till I get some ideas

 

[The_Everdistant_Utopia]

One of four methods:

1. Slam hands on keyboard, pick out only the consonants, get a good combination without breaking the order and fill in the gaps;
2. Actually use one of my old conlang docs (preferably a finished one, but I've used unfinished ones quite often these days), then Anglicize the names;
3. In lack of willpower to conlang, just use www.vulgarlang.com and do the same as above (Anglicize);
4. Ik gebruik gewoon Nederlands.

 

[SailusGebel]

It's one of the methods I use. I look for a site that has a lot of wrestlers' stage names. The next step is to mix and combine them. That way, you end up with different names that don't hold much meaning behind them but sound okay.

 

[Timmy]

I just called my main character henry and called it a day. I find it hard to remember character names if there not ones that I haven't been exposed too frequently. Since my target audience is places such as America or Europe, I thought it would be a good idea.

 

[LinXueLian]

Not too hard for me. I just pick normal names or go on Wikipedia to pick a celebrity I feel associates to that character.

I literally have a fox spirit character named Bu Lai En (Brian), a merchant named An Du Lu (Andrew), a general named Diwei Zhuangxun (Dwane Johnson) and a forest named Ben Jieming (Benjamin) forest....

Or I use stuff like vegetable or fruit names, a la Dragon Ball. I've got an MC named Ai Douya (short bean sprout), Xizhang Tiangua (Yubari Melon), Da Hong Zao (big red date)....

People can't really tell because I've romanized them and I don't provide the raw reading. I mean, if people can say Vegeta, Kakarot, Frieza or Brolly with a straight face and repeatedly express that they're ultra cool and serious characters, I don't think names matter THAT much to them in general....

 

[Ai-chan]

So I'm having difficulty making the names of characters, locations and things that have names in general. How do you guys make your character/location names? Do you guys google names with deep meanings, use random name generators or just make one up that sounds nice?

Ai-chan made a program that outputs names based on Japanese syllables, then use imagination to tweak the names to something that sounds good. When Ai-chan is lazy, Ai-chan just google name generators. You can search on this forum for 'author tools' or 'syllable-based name generator', Ai-chan wrote that program on a whim and it's been a massive help.

And now Ai-chan wrote a program to help write Space Wreckers.

 

[Mysticant]

Interesting, this ant mainly deals with chinese names so it will be similar to LXL. This ant does a few mixed styles and sometimes refer to Chinese name sites but most are self thought. There are a few names that this ant is implementing like Millie SilverBorn as MiLiYinSheng which is half through pinyin and other through literal interpretation or even Shaggoroth(as opposed to Shaggoth) as ShaGuRou (or bone killing meat in English terms).

Edit:
Other times ants choose the traditional Chinese naming, surname+aspirations of the child/personality of the character. Lastly would probably be like giving names to a character based on circumstances. For example, ant named the loli Leng Xue'er which means Cold snow girl because she was an orphan who was found on a cold snowy day.

 

[AliceShiki]

For character names, I usually am quite whimsical and just choose whatever name comes to mind.

If I'm out of ideas, I just use a Fantasy Name Generator to get a nice sounding name.

Surnames and place names are usually just combinations of two words (generally speaking, color + thing is the easiest, but others can work), like...

• The Royal Family of the Evenstar Kingdom.
• The Dukedom of Redgrass.
• The village of Rockfall.
• The city of Whitewind.
• The bandit group of the Black Owls.

And so on... It might seem a bit silly to do something like this, but then you remember that Greyjoy and Winterfell are names of main family/locations of Game of Thrones, so... It just works, yanno?