Choosing Your Character Names

Have you ever been in the midst of typing a story when a character you just created badly needed a name? When the regular Mary, John, Paul or Sue wouldn't do? If the answer is yes, then join the club, a lot of writers and aspiring authors have this problem, myself included. Fact is, if you're writing a story, chances are you will need a character and that character will need a name. 

So what do you do? How do people come up with these names?  

There are actually several ways to go about this:

Look Around You

In my case, specifically, if it's a minor character, you know, like an odd stranger or villager, I simply pick names from the people around me ... a la co-workers . Consider also the names of family members, friends, colleagues etc that could come in handy.

However, for major characters,I generally recommend a bit more effort.

Research

Heroes/heroines, villains, kings/leaders are the ones that'll bring your awesome story to life, so I wouldn't just pluck a name from out of nowhere. You'd want the name to be just right to fit the person you're creating.

Seriously go on google, bing or whatever search engine you choose, and do a search for names. A trick is to know the type of name you're looking for:

Sex: Male or Female

Era: Medieval, Victorian or Present Day

Location: Europe, America, Middle East, Asia

For instance, once I was looking for a respectable male name for a character of middle eastern origin and google provided a pretty good list. There are also several name generators online.

Fantasy Name Generator gives tons of different names for people, places, and supernatural beings from various cultures:

http://fantasynamegenerators.com/

Another useful one is Writers Character Name Generator:

http://writers-den.pantomimepony.co.uk/writers-character-names.php

This topic also came up 2 weeks ago in one of the writers' groups and there were a number of interesting responses.

Check TV/Film Credits

Lots of writers say this is their go to for names particularly for moments when they're stuck.

Tombstones 

Yeah, I was pretty surprised by this one, but one writer said she found lots of cool names by going for a stroll through the cemetery. She found lots of interesting and unique names that worked for her. Think outside of the box and go get those names.

Happy writing!