I'm not very good at thinking up names for characters. It takes me ages to think of suitable ones, especially with surnames. This often means that, when I start writing a new story, I either find the story-telling process is completely blocked until I can think of a name, or (maybe worse) that I simply use the first name that comes into my head.

What do others do in this situation? Does anyone else have this problem with names, or is this something that's pretty easy for most writers? Does anyone have any suggestions for space-filler pending the right name? For example, do people use something like F for a central female character and M for a central male character? What about secondary characters?

Alex

I usually find a name just pops into my head - sometimes this turns out to be a bad thing and I find out that it's a real person or (worse) an existing fictional character - but mostly they turn out to be ok.

If I'm stuck I sometimes pick a name from history - in my WIP several of the characters have the surnames of bit players involved in the Gunpowder plot which is kind of tangentially appropriate - though I don't think anyone would notice/make the link. If they do it's ok - if they don't that's fine as well.

But I'm quite ruthless about changing character names late on. I changed the name of my MC well into the third draft.

I wish I found it that easy. I especially envy Dickens' ability to invent dozens of characters with names that sound vaguely apt yet slightly bizarre (and therefore unlikely to be names of real people).

You could do a lot worse than browse through randomly opened pages of a telephone directory. Something will eventually leap out as suitable.

Chris

When I was naming my children I used to watch the credits at the end of programs to get inspiration (strangely addictive once you start),and I find the same technique works well for my characters. You get to see how the first name and the surname work together.

In fact, I have a few favorite girl's names which I never got to use as I have mostly boys, so my characters do feel like the children I never had

Edel

I do what eedel does - programme credits are great sources. And make notes from graveyards. But also I think of what a character's key personality traits are and then google that trait as a name meaning. But if you can't think of a name, an ordinary name will do - just Anne or John, then once the story is done, use keystrokes Find and Replace All to try out new names and see which is most resonant.

But also I think of what a character's key personality traits are and then google that trait as a name meaning.

Unfortunately, I don't have that belief in names as significant indicators of the kind of person someone is. I suppose that, in some social circles, people do tend to name their kids according to what's fashionable among their peer group (and then bring them up accordingly). But I find that kind of pigeonholing a little disturbing, and would hesitate to use a name merely because it fitted the character's social group or personality traits. Apart from the stereotyping, I could easily end up with a name-and-character combination which was verging on a cliche.

I like the idea of phone directories or programme credits, though, especially the latter. I certainly won't know any of the people listed, so there's no way I would be pigeonholing a character by social group or personality. Perhaps a flip through the BMD indices on Ancestry.co.uk might also be an idea.

Alex

I don't have that belief in names as significant indicators of the kind of person someone is.

Cherys may say I'm wrong, but I don't think that's what she meant. All names have a meaning - they all came from a vocabulary word. That's quite different from names that fit social/culturally dependent stereotypes, and you'll find it in a good Dictionary of First Names (I have Oxfords).

For instance, "Emma" puts me firmly in the generation when the Jane Austen names came into fashion in the UK (it was the most popular given girl's name that year as listed in the Times birth columns, which happened to be the day I was born.) If I were in the US I'd be half a generation younger.

So that places me in date, culture and class, if you like. But Emma means "complete" or "whole" in Old Low German or some such, and if I was using it in a novel, which I wouldn't, I'd have that in mind.

Similarly, "Lucy" means "light", so I gave it to a character in TMOL for that reason: it's all about photography, and she's the character who actually brings light to all the dark corners of Stephen's mind. His surname is Fairhurst: I wanted something super-English, rural-sounding, and also happy-positive.

"Una" in ASA means "one" or "single", (not at all the same as "Oonagh", which is Irish) which was right for the fact that she was an orphan and an only child. It was also right for a family which had all been named for Arthurian characters, to which she sort-of doesn't quite belong, because Una is Malory but not Arthur... The man she's in love with is Mark Fisher, which if you think Arthurian is stuffed with meanings and implications...

That's the way I start thinking about names. Saints names are handy too - the two important men in WTQD (oh dear, sounds like a sub-set of an exam board, doesn' it) are called Simon and Peter, brother and husband of one narrator - Peter is the more reliable one ("rock"), but also a spy, willing to deny his name when it's expedient...

etc. etc. I enjoy it - it's the writers equivalent of cryptic crossword puzzles. A well-thumbed copy of Brewers are your friend. Surname dictionaries are much more indigestible, but it can be a lot easier to find a suitable name therefore - there are many more which are straight vocabulary words (I have a deplorable husband in WQTD who is called Losemoore.)

And there's a small joke in WQTD, in that a Flemish boy who gets rescued and is going to be turned into a spy is called Viet Burgeis... which is Flemish for Guy Burgess... No one will get it except me and one Flemish speaker who'll email to tell me I've spelt Burgeis wrong. But still.

Emma

<Added>

Oh, and another game: all the modern surnames in ASA are medieval job-names:

Prior
Fisher
Marchant
Butler

etc.

<Added>

One last thought, and then I'll stop, I promise...

I often use names that can take different forms, because that says such a lot about the setup. For example, Maggie in WQTD is really Marie Madeleine, of a London Huguenot family, but only her mother, who clings to the old ways, calls her that - she anglicises herself and so does everyone else. And yes, I know that Maggie's usually short for Margaret, but Maggie was the perfect name for her, so this one was a back-formation to find a likely Huguenot origin for her new name.

And I've just done a very neat little game with the baby form of the French form of the English name of a different character at the end of WQTD, which would be a plot-spoiler to explain..

I quite often pick mine from the internet - lists of girl names, for instance (I searched under Hebrew Girl Names last time and found some really good ones).

Or they pop up at odd moments - the taxi driver who took me to the station the other day mentioned a friend of his with a very unusual name and I just stole it there and then!

Though you do have to be careful - a thriller-writer was sued by a singer, for having a murderer-character who was a singer of the same name and with a not-dissimilar career... I don't think anyone thought it was deliberate, but the singer won the case.

So do check names you use, in other words, especially if, for example, you write a dishonest solicitor or incompetent builder, that there's no builder or solicitor of that naem...

Emma

Yes, Emma, I have to do that for my WW serials - particularly if my characters are murderers!

Place names can often make a good character name, and there are loads down here in Devon and Cornwall, such as Kelly Bray, Ivy Keasley etc.

I'm always on the lookout at place names when we're driving through little villages and towns. I check all the signposts and boards, lol.

I love the Devon place names - not sure the ones I love would make good names, but definitely they have a ring to them in terms of potential novel place names: Black Dog, Nomansland, etc.

that I simply use the first name that comes into my head

Alex, you're a techie, what's wrong with Ctrl+H, Replace All?

Don't sweat it. Change names as easily as you'd change anything else, unless the name becomes significant... in which case you'll know what it is.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with making a few up. I've also had a few games trying to get every letter in the alphabet...

G

Alex, you're a techie, what's wrong with Ctrl+H, Replace All?

It's important not to think as a techie when writing, though. Just because I've called a character Rebecca Tweedle, that doesn't mean that every reference to her is going to be to 'Rebecca Tweedle'. I might sometimes call her Rebecca, sometimes Ms Tweedle, sometimes Beckie, and so on.

I have actually gone through this process once. I called a character in one novel Alex, and then decided to use that as my pseudonym, so changed his name to Brett. It wasn't completely plain sailing to change it, as I had to make sure the new name sounded right, and that there were no subtle problems (such as references to his initials).

It is interesting to read people's take on this question, though. Evidently I'm making more of an issue of it than is justified.

(I concur with Katerina's suggestion of place names, though. I used 'Oakhurst' as a surname of a character, and it came from the street name where my grandmother lived.)

Alex