Author Topic: Stuck on a name  (Read 2932 times)

lowky

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on: June 03, 2009, 04:16:45 PM
I am starting to write again finally and I am stuck on the name for a female character any suggestions, or places you turn for name insperation?


deflective

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Reply #1 on: June 03, 2009, 05:53:45 PM
name databases give you a lot of flexibility.  awesome if you're creating large worlds with multiple races since you can use the regional filters to create a sense of continuity (gaelic names for the woodfolk, slavic for the plains, that kind of thing).

right now i'm reading a book about a woman named Ariah.  not a fan of the book but the name is good.



Anarkey

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Reply #2 on: June 03, 2009, 06:38:23 PM
I am starting to write again finally and I am stuck on the name for a female character any suggestions, or places you turn for name insperation?

If the name needs to be significant or important, don't fret it, and don't let it keep you from writing.  I wrote an entire book with <dog name> (and also <dog title> because titles are important in this work) for a major character and then went back and s/r'd when I had the name and title.  Bracket the stand-in phrase (some people use [MC] for main character) so you can easily find it later.

If the name DOESN'T need to be important then just pick something.  The first or second something that comes into your head is fine.

However, if you just want some suggestions, you can use baby namers, of which they're about a gillion (as deflective suggested), or the phone book.  Sometimes I do stuff like look at lists of soccer players or olympian athletes from certain countries, if I need a certain flavor.  They're also a number of (half in jest) fantasy name generators that can give you ideas.

I tend to do thematic names, blame it on the years I spent thinking up naming conventions for machines on a network.  So in one story I have folks named after growing things (Rose and Linden) and in another story I have folks named after months of the year (April, Julian, Augusto) and in another story I wanted to have the suggestion of alpha and omega so one character's name begins with a and the other with z.  Sometimes I require biblical names, sometimes Greek or Latin, sometimes Shakespearian.  Just depends. 

The name is non-critical.  You can come up with it later.  For now, keep writing.

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lowky

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Reply #3 on: June 04, 2009, 01:28:50 AM
Thanks for the help.  I am continuing to write.  Not completely happy with the name i chose with the baby name thing but...  I think in part because it's twins and the name for the living one came to me right away (Ironically i think because I had seen a character with the same name die earlier in the day watching an episode of Lost)