Character Names

[Ellen Griswold]

How do you all come up with your characters' names? Usually my main characters just....come to me. But I'm stuggling with some secondary characters. Anybody have any hints?

[notjustmamie]

How about considering what the strongest trait of the character is, then looking up names with that meaning?

[Sagesgirl]

I'll do just about any random thing to come up with lesser-character names. I've grabbed whatever book was within reach (quite often it's non-fiction) and used part of the author's name or a character name or opened up the paper and grabbed a first name or clicked over to a news website and used a name from a by-line. I only get first names this way, so I'm not actually using someone's name. I do tend to get last names in the same general way, but I've looked up surnames of a certain nationality or ethnicity before (I looked up Creole last names not too long ago).

[katmann]

It sounds crazy, but glance in the phonebook for inspiration. Especially with regard to surnames, you'll find some doozies.

[puddle]

The billions of babynaming websites can be helpful.

[borbonmamma]

Originally Posted by notjustmamie

How about considering what the strongest trait of the character is, then looking up names with that meaning?

:

[Sagesgirl]

Oh, also, I make use of the SSA's baby names site. One thing that really irks me with reading historical romances is the way trendy names keep popping up in them, & even in contemporary works it can sometimes stick. Sophia might make perfect sense for someone born last year, but not so much so for someone who's 30.