How do you name your charaters?

[anjouleme]

Just wondered how everyone comes up with their names. When a charater first presents themselfs to you, do they already have a name or do you have to find one for them? I have a such a hard time commiting to names for my charaters. When you o pick a name do it immediatly feel right or does it sometimes take a bit of writing it for it to fit?

[LadyRiona]

That's actually rather hard for me, naming characters. Either, I come up with a name that I love and then have trouble with their personality or vice versa. I usually prefer having their profile and then trouble their name, because that means the name will fit them better. But generally, when I name characters, I make sure that it has some tie to who they are, or their past.

In some rare cases, a name just falls right into place for them and I'm like, "Oh, look...that works. You are [insert name]."

[Diclonius' Lilium]

I kind of crack open a baby name book and read all the names. (or I flip to a random page and put my finger on it.)

[neb92]

*shrug* Names just come to me, really. I'm just writing, and then suddenly I think, "YOU ARE SO AND SO. THE AUTHOR HAS SPOKEN" and that's that. Of course, there are a few occasions when I ask my friends for help. Ri helped me with that, actually, with my original story.

[Meluivan Indil]

Usually I have my character in mind for a while before I decide on a name and the name always means something or there is reasoning behind using it.

For example, in a fantasy story one of my characters was born by one race of people but they were transformed from a different race many centuries before. But my character had adopted the characteristics from the original race, so I looked up the meaning of regress and then found the latin translation for it and the name Atavus was derived from that. It literally means regress to a past form in latin.

So I guess you'd say I put alot into naming my characters.

M.

[Ark]

Mine have a lot of reference to attributes of their character, odd personality quirks, or mythological references that represent such qualities.

Such as one character, Oak. Thusly named after the concept in Celtic mythology that the gods were born from an oak tree, which gave rise to good in the world. Oak's character is destined to bring good to a neutral/evil world.

[syrus]

Well, usually the names just come to me as well. But, depending on the kind of story I was writing, the name might be a pun, or it just could be a name that I like.