Connecting Readers and Writers discussion

Usually for the primary characters in my books I've just made up surnames and for their given names I either look for unique names in baby books or use names from mythology.

The weirdest name I've used to date would be from my first novel, A New Forest Witch, and to be honest it would be a toss up between the two aunts, Druantia and Gwynedd. Though I do use a lot of uncommon names in the book so I'm sure my readers could suggest others as well.

Amira wrote: "Seena, Sinoueh, Bitaah, Anpu, Kedja, Karan, Mirr-Ha,
Hetep-skhem-wy.............

Because my fantasy is set in ancient Egypt <3 I researched some of the names of that time period there and these a..."


I really want to read your story!

This is such a cool question!

My current WIP, set in fictional Cairn Crandular, has:
- Prof. Hastily Dobbs, professor of Applied Metaphysics
- Derelict Frobisher, maintenance man, who thinks he might be murdered
- Solon Quillings, student and activist, also possibly dead
- Kalliope Snow, librarian and instigator
- Arcetus Black, a Captain of Industry
- Pu-Tze, mystic, sage, and proprietor/waiter of a tea garden
- Prof. Nycticus Borridge, professor of Volatile Alchemy

I'm not really sure where the names come from, though I've found using adverbs or adjectives can be an easy way to get an unusual but meaningful name with built-in associations to cue the reader to expect a certain kind of person.

I did retroactively figure out the in-world backstory to Hastily Dobbs's name, though. He was born in a small village up in the mountains, on a blustery night with stormclouds looming. When he was born the midwife looked outside and told the new mother, "Name 'im 'astily, mum, for the storm's a-comin'!"

So she did.

Current WIP has some fairly generic names, but also some different names.

My protagonist is Evelyn (Eve for short), her travel party includes Falon (her red headed adopted big brother/best friend), Karu (her unicorn) and Albalvion (young dragon).

Her mother and father: Sorcha and Joseph

It's a dark fantasy.

In my first book, the protagonist's name is Latakia Billows. The plot involves his grandfather's pipe, and pipe smoking becomes one of the character's defining traits. The surname was the result of a contest I ran on a pipe tobacco forum, which did help draw interest in the project. Latakia is a type of tobacco, and given that I write the book as a loving satire of the adventure genre and, among others, Indiana Jones specifically, giving him a three-syllable nickname felt right. (Imagine Sean Connery saying, "We called the tobacco Latakia.")

Unfortunately, I am horrible with naming characters, so most of the time I rely on Scrivener's name generator.

A character I've created in the novel I'm writing at the moment, hasn't got a particularly unusual name. But somehow it does sum up her persona.
Laura Tremblyn. The story is set in Cornwall, where Tre, Pol and Pen are the noted prefixes.
In another novel. there is an Albanian girl called Dashurie

The more unusual character names in my novel are to be found among the Incarnators, a sort of death-cult inhabiting the tunnels below Manhattan. "Grist" is one, alluding both to gristle (due to his ghoulish appearance) and grist-mill (as a winnower of souls from bodies). Also the saying "grist-for-the-mill", as the founder of the Incarnators assembled his cult mostly from society's cast-offs. There's also Major General Malaise, Zazou, and Tom Collins.

Ben wrote: "This is such a cool question!

My current WIP, set in fictional Cairn Crandular, has:
- Prof. Hastily Dobbs, professor of Applied Metaphysics
- Derelict Frobisher, maintenance man, who thinks he mi..."

Love the backstory to that name! The novel sounds intriguing, please give me a heads-up when it's finished. (A glance at Zen affirms the writing quality.)

Oh, wow! I am in big trouble along just these lines. I think we all struggle with unusual or foreign names and many readers seem to have little tolerance for names that don't trip neatly off the tongue. So, when I published my novel 'New Fire', New Fire set in Aztec times, the universal complaint was about the nahuatl names. I've given this a LOT of thought and joked with people about calling my Aztec warriors, Jim, Bob and Mike. I agree that English speakers' tongues won't readily wrap around the name 'Huitzilopochtli' either, but to refer exclusively to this deity as 'The God of War' throughout a historical fiction seems a bit lame.

I love the Confucius quote from Micah above and so, when the sequel to 'New Fire' comes out in a couple of months time, nahuatl names remain.

Courtney wrote: "Here's something for the writers in this group - What are some strange names you gave your characters and why did you decide on them?"

Dr. Rip T. Brash The Third
Krimshaw
Wilx

Greegs & Ladders

Don't really know why we did it. They just seemed like the proper names for these characters. We have a lot of fun naming characters, planets, and various things because our Universe is almost entirely made up. Definitely my favorite name for anything was an astrospeciology magazine publication:

"Creepy Crawly Telepathic Worm-like Flying Fish That Start Off Rather Small but Grow to be Over 600 Meters Tall and Several Thousand Kilometers Long, Grow Feathers and Scales in Weird Patchy Clumps all Over Their Body, Sprout Extra Limbs Which Serve No Purpose and then Try to Colonize Nearby Solar Systems With Astoundingly Innovative Technology and Weaponry That’s Never Been Seen Anywhere Else and Never Will be Seen Again, Only to Have a Sudden Shift In Consciousness and Nostalgia Late in Life, Leave the Battle Grounds and Return to Mate and Raise Young Then Sit Around Talking About How Easily They Could Have Smashed Whatever Hapless and Peaceful Civilization They Happened to Wage War on This Particular Generation."

C.D. wrote: "Ben wrote: "This is such a cool question!

My current WIP, set in fictional Cairn Crandular, has:
- Prof. Hastily Dobbs, professor of Applied Metaphysics
- Derelict Frobisher, maintenance man, who ..."

Derelict Frobisher, fantastic name! I love that one.

Well, I write fantasy, so there's plenty of weird names to share. The "why-s" however are quite a lot as well.

Some characters have their names simply for the sake of world-building. For example some of the women in my "When They Shine Brightest" have names like ny'Eta, ny'Antara, etc., because they're priestesses in a temple and their names are related to their religion (trust me, it makes sense :D).

Other characters have their particular names so that the reader can associate them with a particular mood or thought. For example one male character is called Krul Dordron. He's not a typical villain but I wanted him to feel like one from the start, so aside from all the other things I did to achieve that (most test readers agreed he's their fav) I also gave him a cruel-sounding name. And his family name - Dordron - sounds a bit like a Bulgarian word for "shit" (Bulgarian is my main language), so I often joke he's named "A cruel dropling".

I have a lot of names that don't mean absolutely nothing and are just combinations of letters but are specifically arranged to have a similar linguistic feel - Korsak, Kortok, Rodrok, Daruon, Kruon, etc. Plus, "Korsak" (my main char) is also a type of fox that I really like. Plus^2 it sounds a bit like "corsair" in Bulgarian which is a bonus.

I also have a couple of names that are simply hidden Easter eggs. Duros for example (don't try to look it up, you won't succeed unless you know what it is ;) ).

Probably my favourite name however is that of a little girl - Arty. It's short for Arteana (I did say it's a fantasy novel), however some of my friends and test readers tried to rationalize it through my psychology. See, my girlfriend is called Boryana and we call her Bobby for short. The thing is that Bobby is mainly a male name in Bulgaria and they thought that "Arty" is a short form of "Arthur" and that's a sign that I have a "fetish for male-named women". I'm pretty sure that should I have let them continue, they were going to inform me that I'm actually a homosexual ...
And the reality - I just named the character to an RPG character I loved playing, called Artillery, or Arty for short ... Conclusion - people's logic is often weird. :P

In the newest story I am writing, the first name was quick and simply, Amy. The surname, however, was something I wanted to hold some meaning. I chose the last name of MUSIL, which is of Czech origin (a wink to my family's origins).

Beyond the family link, Musil is loosely translated to mean "the one who had to." This translation is a perfect definition for who the character becomes! And ultimately, became the title of my very first suspense novel!

The first book series I ever tried to write was inspired by a videogame my dad had gotten me and the world was so strange that I thought I needed to have a few strange names to fit, but mostly they were normal. Then, as I got older, I felt unique names made my characters so much better. I really don't know why, but I nipped that in the bud a few years ago. Now, with my first full-length complete novel, some of my characters have unique, made up names, but for a very good reason. They're a different species and I rationalize that they wouldn't have the same names the humans and such in my book do. I now no longer give characters strange names just for the sake of it. I know that names don't make the character. The life you breathe into them does.