The Best Ways to Name Your Character

Everyone involved with creative writing has to come up with good character names.  Of course, "good character name" means something different to each of us.  If you think about it, there's a number of characters that you've read over the years that stick in your mind -- either because of their actions in the story or because of their name.  Some authors are particularly good at creating memorable names (Dickens and Rowling, for example).

With the popularity of role-playing games, this topic has expanded past the creative writer.  How can you come up with a good name for use in a computer game?


How do you come up with names, for char­ac­ters (and for places if you’re writ­ing about fic­tional places)?

Generally, though, when a character pops into my mind they spring forth with a name at the same time.  And, for the post part, that name fits them in a way that only that name can.

Sometimes, though, I conceive a character that doesn't come "pre-named".  At those times, I like to consult lists of baby names, since something on the list will trigger a "good name".  There's Web sites with lists of baby name and name trends that are particularly helpful.

Sometimes, though, I've had to change a character's name after the fact; if, for example, the new character's name is too similar to an existing character's name I have to change it to avoid confusion.  Say you already have a character named Mary ... I don't like introducing a new one named Maria or Maryanne or anything close to the sound of Mary.

I'm not sure if that's an actual writing "no-no" to have characters with too similar sound names, but for me it's taboo.  I also try not to have too many of the same names from story to story, unless I'm actively writing a continuation of the previous story, which, of course, would necessitate having the same characters to some extent.

I've noticed that I tend to have at least one character per story who's an immigrant of some fashion -- most of my story's are set in New York City and the surround area, so it's extremely likely to run into someone who has just arrived from another country.  In those situations, I use a quick Google search to find name lists for the origin country (or more specifically, the origin ethnicity if the character is say, a Turk who grew up in England before coming to States).

What works for you when you need to come up with a character name?