What’s In A Name? Naming Characters
 by: Scott Lindsay

You have developed a plot, setting and have even come up the main characters for your latest story. You start to write, but it isn’t long before your come to a road block. It’s not the storyline; after all you know where you’re headed. It’s not the setting; you mapped that out before the first word was committed to paper.

No, the thing that you are missing is the perfect name for you characters. You have a couple of throw away names you are using, but you know the names just don’t fit the characters in question.

So how do you come up with the perfect name for your characters?

Simply put, this becomes a matter of personal preference that is often left up to the most unusual reasoning.

There are some colleagues of mine who may go back to their formative years and simply chose the name of friend or foe based on the personality of the character and assign a derivative of a real persons name to the character in question.

Others have made liberal use of a thesaurus and found a character trait that best defines their hero and unearth other words that are similar. They then incorporate that word into the name of their character.

Some simply come up with the first name that comes to mind and live with it.

There are those occasions when a character’s name was the very first thing an author came up with. The name was so perfect the story developed from this unusual source.

You can even find some writers who are much more scientific in their quest to discover a perfect name for their characters. This group will consult a time honored book in search of a name that will set their character apart.

This particular method is foolproof. I can promise you that you will find a name for your character. The truth is this particular method is one I routinely use; the phone book.

I have used the “close your eyes and stab your finger at the first name you come across” method. I’ve also looked through to find a unique and highly readable last name and then couple it with a first name that fits the character. The benefit of using this method is that there are many names to choose from and there are some very unique choices.

Next time you are stuck trying to figure out a name for a fictional character just pick up the phone book and let your fingers do the walking.

About The Author

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of FaithWriters (www.faithwriters.com) and many other web projects. FaithWriters has grown to become one of the largest online destinations for Christian writers. Members include writers from all around the world. Please visit the website at: http://www.faithwriters.com.