How I name my characters
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 10:29PM I take naming my characters very seriously. There isn't a single character in my books that doesn't have a name of significance. Sometimes readers can pick up on why I chose that name--but other times it's a private meaning, just a touchstone for me.
A few examples:
--In my upcoming book, DROUGHT, the main character's name is Ruby. I chose that name for a number of reasons. First, rubies are a precious stone, and Ruby is precious to the Congregation that is her family. Even though most of them don't know it, her blood sustains their lives. I also liked naming this character after a gemstone that needs cutting, polishing, to be made beautiful--because Ruby will have to go through transformations before she reaches her potential too. And then there's the most obvious reason: rubies are red. So is blood.
--But the main character in my first book, CANDOR, got his name--Oscar--quite differently. In the first draft of CANDOR, he wasn't the son of the town founder. Heck, he wasn't even the main character. No. He was the son of the school custodian. He had the bad luck to be named Oscar, which meant he had to deal with a lot of kids teasing him--the custodian's kid living in a trash can just like Oscar the Grouch, etc. That gave him a chip on his shoulder. It's one of the few characteristics that survived as he evolved into the rich, smooth main character with big secrets. Somehow, I couldn't bear to change his name. I figured it sounded fancy, like a boy born into privilege. Besides, he wouldn't let me call him anything else.
--I won't reveal any of the names in my new book, since it's still just a little baby idea and these things DO change, but I will share a few of my favorite places to research names:
- US Census Records. If I'm writing about teens in 2015, then I like to check their birth years to see which names were most popular then. Some characters should get very popular names, and others the most obscure.
- Baby name books--a favorite writers' tool. My go-to book is titled THE BEST BABY NAME BOOK IN THE WHOLE WORLD, by Bruce Lansky.
- Graveyards records and landholder records--some you can find via Google while others you will only find at your local research library. I chose some of the last names in DROUGHT (Pelling, Prosser, Schuyler) from common property holder names in upstate New York.
Happy character naming!
Reader Comments (4)
Pam, it's funny that you posted this at the same time that I was wrestling with character names for my NaNoWriMo novel! It's a tricky road to walk at times, coming up with a good name that says something about the character or suggests a piece of his/her history, yet without making the allusion or meaning TOO obvious. I'm working on a horror fantasy story, and naming characters in fantasy is easier in some ways and more difficult in others. For instance, you generally try to avoid "real" names, like Peter or Jennifer, but you don't want to get TOO crazy or create a name that the reader isn't sure how to pronounce. (Tolkien set the tone here, as he did for many other elements of the genre. While the place names can be difficult, the character names are pretty easy: Frodo, Legolas, Aragorn... and he even squeezes in "Sam" by making it a nickname for "Samwise.")
And sometimes all you need to do is take a common name and add/swap a letter or consonant. Bingo! Instant fantasy name. For my tale, I have a mysterious warlock from a dark land. For some reason, Translyvania came to mind, even though there's nothing vampire-like about this guy. Yet "Bela" stuck in my head. One syllable later... Belarin. :-)
I can't imagine Oscar as the custodian's son. You should write about how such a change came about from the first version of the book to what was released.
I think Candor has what it takes to be turned into a movie- The entire book was filled with suspense and I found myself holding my breath every now and then as I wonder what will happen next. I think if Candor was turned into a movie, a lot of people would watch it, regardles whether they read the book! Do consider it and all the best for your new novel.
Cheers! :)
Great post. I always have so much fun naming my characters. For example, a character in the book I'm working on is an incredible hunter. He's a minor character, and it was fun to name him "Theron" which is Greek for hunter. :)
I stopped by to tell you that I loved Candor. I'm planning to post a review of it on my blog a week from Tuesday. It blew me away. And I was wondering where one can request ARCs of Drought. I'm looking forward to it.
http://rivreads.blogspot.com