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Originally Posted by BenG

“By the way, the best place to find names for fictional characters, if you are ever foolish enough to write a novel, is in a Bradshaw or an ABC. All the nicest people always sound like railway stations.”
― Beverley Nichols, Merry Hall

Bradshaw and ABC are railway schedules.

Oooh, I like this idea too. Nice. Thanks. That's actually quite clever.

Holy smoke, even just the single image of one route in Wikipedia is a treasure trove of names.

Originally Posted by Catlady

Marcello, Francisco, or Pierre.

Pierre! That would've been it, I think (if Hitch hadn't come along and turn my world upside down).

Originally Posted by crich70

Yep there really is a Fabio who did romance covers. He's been on TV. Have you considered "The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook"? It's in both paper and ebook formats and has names by nationality. It also gives tips on surnames for various nationalities as well.

I had no idea there was a book devoted to naming characters. But that's a great idea when you think about it.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Why not turn tropes on their ear, and name him something decidedly UNsexy?

I mean, we've all seen, for example,the ubiquitous ultra-sexy male vamps, from Lestat to Victor to Jean-Claude, yadda. It's really old, in some ways.

What about...Dudley? George? (The Georges on the forum, forgive me.) Fred? (Ditto.).

Just twist it up, and tweak your reader. If it were me, I'd talk about yon Studly Do Right, in a way that leads the reader to believe that he's completely different--a nerd, etc., by using a nerdly or dull name, like Dudley or Duddley. Then surprise them, with his studly good looks.

Just an idea.

Hitch

Oh, crap. LOL!!! I think his name is now Dudley. That's...kind of hilarious (sorry to all the Dudleys out there). But that's such a good idea. Oh wait...Myron, Cyril, Cedric, Nigel.

Originally Posted by gmw

My character names come from all over the place. If the name wasn't obvious up front (I don't know why, but sometimes it is - or seems to be, but sometimes I'm wrong), then like you I tend to use place holders while I get to know them and then settle on something later. Otherwise I use anything from babynames.com (lets you easily see where the name is from and what it means etc), to my own database of random names, to adaptations from old myths etc., to simply "oh, that sounds good/right".

However, in a situation like you describe, I turned to imdb

In my first book I had a character that I knew almost exactly what I wanted: a very young Tony Curtis. That young, slender, bright eyed and cheeky little boy look he had. And I knew I was remembering the particular look from some movie that I hadn't seen in years ... turns out it was Taras Bulba (also starred Yul Brunner). And so I got my character name from the part he played in that movie.

I always loved Tony Curtis ("yonda lies the cassle of my fada") and thought he was a totally under-rated actor with a real flair for comedy. Also a devastating Cary Grant impersonator.
Now you've got me thinking about actor's real names: Marion (John Wayne), Eldred (Gregory Peck), Archibold (Cary Grant) and my favourite, Spangler (Robert Taylor).

Thanks everyone! So many good ideas and so much fun. I feel better about good old Fabio now (poor thing - he doesn't even get an appearance or dialogue and he has endure people making fun of his name).