Are the names of fictional characters really important? Many authors struggle over selecting names for their characters. Some take several chapters to resolve their dilemma. Fortunately, with the wonder of the modern word processor all it takes is a quick ‘find/replace all’ operation to globally change a character’s name.
Does the name define the character or does the character imbue the name with meaning? As with most issues on creativity there is no right answer, or perhaps more correctly there’s a different right answer for each author. Informally, I’d say three out of four authors I know (which is a substantially higher number than those who’ll admit knowing me), struggle with devising names for their characters.
Since I’m the only author (in either of those aforementioned groups) whose methodology I understand; I thought I’d go through my creative process – sounds almost oxymoronic doesn’t it – for naming characters in Misaligned: The Celtic Connection my YA fantasy. At the risk of boring those few of you who’ve already read it, the story’s protagonist is a thirteen year old girl living in a small upstate NY town. Her misalignment with our universe connects her to the Welsh origins of Arthurian legend. How’s that for an 80K word story in two sentences?
Anyway, this led me to needing names for half a dozen primary characters and a supporting cast of a little over three dozen more. I’ve always been fond of alliteration, so I wanted to use it in the lead character’s name. I started her out as Penny Piper. Her last name being a very loose translation of my own, but for some reason it didn’t sound right and I switched her to Penny Preston.
To satisfy my own vanity, I changed the name of her town to Piper Falls and named her parents (Harry & Kate) after me (again a very loose translation of my first name) and a familiar version of my wife’s name. As an aside, I’ve always wanted to call my wife Cate instead of Cathy, but she’s never been overly taken by the idea. 
I can’t remember what I started with for her best friend’s name, but fairly early on I changed it to Duncan O’Brien. I freely raided names from my elementary and high school mates for the other children in the story, although I never used a complete name from any of them. I mixed first and last names to match sounds or feelings I was looking for and to avoid any unnecessary incidents should any of them actually read my book and make their own connection.
With roots in the Welsh version of Arthur, I plucked names from the legends for many of the other characters. I also picked several Welsh and English names from lists of common first and surnames I found searching the internet. I even borrowed one from Jethro Tull’s ‘Thick as a Brick.’ In addition to people, I needed names for the half-dozen or so mythical creatures I created. I used names from Celtic myth, but with a healthy dose of writer’s license.
Is it worth it?
All in all, I spent a lot of time working out the names for the characters and creatures. Does it change the way readers feel about my story? I don’t know, and in the end I’m not sure it really matters. I’m not saying that readers don’t matter, quite the opposite. However, when I’m writing I’m not really writing for my readers. I’m write for me. If I don’t like it, well, I’m fairly certain my readers won’t either. Of course, I’m just hoping that the converse of that is true.
Thanks for reading.
Armen
Names are a bit of a nightmare for me as well but it really does depend on the setting and theme of the story I think. In my Children’s Novel ‘The Realm of the Purple Dragon’ and for the next 2 books in the series I didn’t have to look very far for my main character’s names as the stories are actually written for my children (one book each) with them as the hero of their own story – so that was easy and most of the other characters in the Realm are all based on colour – The White Wizard, The Rainbow Rune Master (all my children’s books are part of the ‘Rainbow Rune Series’), The Silver Sorceress etc. or they are from Celtic or Norse mythology – the Norse gods for example.
Great idea for a blog post 🙂
Although claims of my illiteracy by university professors would be difficult to argue against, I’m pretty sure you mean “inverse” rather than “converse”.
Found your thought process interesting. Thanks!
Thanks for taking the time to read and even more to comment. Inverse is the more traditional word choice, but I believe either is valid as they both mean ‘opposite’
I didn’t use anything except that I have always loved the name Aurora (from Chopin’s love of his life to the Shirley MacLaine character in terms of Endearment, if I recollect correctly) but when ever I thought of it, I thought of Aurora Borealis which I could not use. Here’s what I came up with for meaning that may only ever matter to me but there it is: 1. Aurora: “Light” 2.Morealist: “More Real.” Great piece that made me stop and think about my pen name yet again, thank you for sharing this – I agree it matters not so much what our name so much as if we engage readers… we could pretty much be called anything if they like what we have to say, an authors name never matters to me really as a reader either 😀
Like this a lot. Many of our authors simply use online programs to generate fictitious names until they find one they like. Like you said, I wonder if it makes any real difference in the end?
Fantasy provides an additional challenge. The names have to fit the period, the society, the culture and not be too close the what we expect to have seen before in the ‘real’ world. It’s fun but sometimes takes a bit of time.
I agree that fantasy, or at least epic and high fantasy is a slightly different beast. I was going to touch on that, but chose to wait. First, it would’ve made the post a bit long. Second, I’ve got a high fantasy story coming out later in the year and I thought it would be better to wait until it’s available. Generally I don’t explicitly market on my blog, but I do like to have tie-ins.
I appreciate your comment and thanks for reading.