The Name Game

Posted by Jen on Monday, April 7th, 2008 @ 11:43 pm

One of the most important elements of a story is the names. At least, that’s how I look at it. Names can really help define a character. They can cause me to perceive a character a certain way, and it can say a lot about who they are and where they came from.

I’m having a lot of fun coming up with character and location names for my novel. Because there are a wide range of…”types” of characters and places, I can get really creative with them. In other words, I have some mythical creatures and places. So, I want to come up with some names that are appropriate.

Two of the best sites I’m using for this are BabyNames.com and BabyNamesWorld.com. I can search for names, meanings, origins, popularity, where they’re popular and more. These are great tools for coming up with names, and I’ve actually used these sites for every single character name I’ve created so far except for one. That one just came to me, and I knew it was perfect. The names I found using these sites are great, and I really wouldn’t have been able to come up with them on my own. Some of these names I’d never even heard before, but they were perfect for some of my characters. So, if you’re having trouble coming up with the perfect name for one of your characters, I really suggest browsing around one of these websites.

For mythical places, I’ve been using Dictionary.com. I use this in a little less than straightforward manner. I input words, sometimes translate them, put them together, take them apart and just play with the soundings and meanings of them. It takes some time to do this, but so far, I’ve come up with several interesting, meaningful and unique names for some locations in my novel.

What about you? How do you come up with names and do you have any great tools that you use for this?