I’m in enough social creative fiction writing groups to know that this is a major problem that many writers face. It seems simple right? Giving your character a name seems like the easiest thing to do when writing a book but you should also know that your character’s name is one of the most important thing when it comes to your story, for many obvious reasons. So therefore, we have to be careful when choosing a name for a character and not just throw any name that comes to our head into the book. Sometimes, many authors tend to give their book character a name, just because it sounds fancy. I’ve seen it in so many occasions and it just makes me cringe. You should give a character a name when you have really thought about it and you see it goes with the character traits and your writing. For example, there was a time I gave my character a latina name just because I liked it and it sounded extremely fancy, so I went for it. As time goes on, I figured out I wasn’t into the name like I was and like I should and it was totally wrong, infact it made me to change the plot of the story and my character, herself does not have anything to do with being latina, talkless of being ethnical. So guys, in order for you to choose the right name for your character and not regretting it, here are some things I put together to help the writers out there. Before you continue, just to let you know I’m not an expert writer. In fact I’m still learning a lot of things in writing that I might even be considered an amateur but this, I do know and I’ll love to share. So please feel free to continue.
1. MOVIE CREDITS
One way to figure out the name to give to your book characters is through movies credit. You know, the list of names that appears at the end of every movie or TV show. I do this too. All you have to do is just to stare at the screen and select names as many as you can. As funny as this sounds, it really helps cause it have many collections of names from different people. It has more than hundred names in it, making it easier for you to choose.
2. EPITAPHS.
I got this idea from a Facebook group, though I haven’t tried it and most probably never will. People do say it works, as funny and ridiculous that sounds. It helps them to get a lot of names and able to join them together. In the epitaph, what you’re looking at is just the name whom it is directed to and that’s all. So if you have the courage to go to the cemetery and do this, I’m not giving you a go ahead signal. Do what you think is best.
3. BOOKS
This one is just as popular as the first one. I do this too, also. I read books, so what I do is gather names from these books and arrange them, combine them and see how it sounds like. You can also take your textbooks and read the names of the contributors, I do that with my dictionary. There are also book names you can buy.
4. RESEARCH.
This is also another popular way if giving your book character a name and it’s some times, the simplest. At least it’s better than going to the cemetery and looking at names on tomb stones, that’s really creepy guys. But you can search for names, especially baby names online. You can search for specific ethnic names or ancient names. This is also the one I use more often and I prefer, the best.
And there you have it, tips you cab try when giving your character a name. Remember, after you have gotten a list of names, combine them and choose the one that is more appropriate. For example, a typical Punjabi girl whose family does not understand anything English cannot be bear a names like Storm or Ocean. It can be possible tho but when it comes to writing, it just don’t not seem realistic.
So I hope this helps and maybe you can try it out some time, if it helped please let me know in the comment and also I’ll love to here other ways in which we can generate names.
Blog with Sharon 
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