Naming your characters.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by John Carroll

It was my understanding that he got Xanth from his name: Piers Anthony. Take the 's' from Piers and the 'Anth' from Anthony and you get Santh, or when you say his full name out loud, it sounds like Xanth.

As I remember it from his autobiography "Bio of an Ogre" he and his wife had looked at names for their daughter (either a miscarriage or stillborn I can'r recall which) early on in their marriage and he came across Xanthe then. It means yellow if I remember right. Actually Piers Anthony is only half his name. His full name is Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacobs.

[John Carroll]

Originally Posted by crich70

As I remember it from his autobiography "Bio of an Ogre" he and his wife had looked at names for their daughter (either a miscarriage or stillborn I can'r recall which) early on in their marriage and he came across Xanthe then. It means yellow if I remember right. Actually Piers Anthony is only half his name. His full name is Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacobs.

Ahh, okay. It's been years since I've read his work. I remember somebody telling me it was the other way, and I've never read the bio.

[Pulpmeister]

Even the most experienced authors can slip up.

I've just been re-reading an Agatha Christie which I haven't read for years, and I was struck by the names:

One character-Harold Beadle- changed his name to Badcock (I can't imagine any man voluntarily choosing Badcock). Another character's name was Allcock. Then there was Doctor Haydock and Chief-Inspector Craddock.

Ock, aye!

[VydorScope]

What if you had more then one series.. how safe would name reuse be? Like if J.K. Roweling's new book had a Hermani (sp???) in it? would that work, or is that name basically gone for her now?

[John Carroll]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

What if you had more then one series.. how safe would name reuse be? Like if J.K. Roweling's new book had a Hermani (sp???) in it? would that work, or is that name basically gone for her now?

In my opinion, names throughout all my books should be different. Once I've used a name, it's done. Within the same series, I even try to avoid using names that start with the same letter for main characters.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by John Carroll

In my opinion, names throughout all my books should be different. Once I've used a name, it's done. Within the same series, I even try to avoid using names that start with the same letter for main characters.

What if it was a minor side character with a nondistinct name like Mike the bar keep that is there for like 2 paragraphs?

[John Carroll]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

What if it was a minor side character with a nondistinct name like Mike the bar keep that is there for like 2 paragraphs?

For minor characters I use generic names like Mike or Tina and don't necessarily apply the first letter rule. My main characters tend to have names like: Pelya, Ebudae, Frath, Liselle, Vevin, Tathan.

I still try to avoid duplicating names in the same series, but will duplicate generic ones in different series.

[VydorScope]

So it figures. I made up a name for a tribe of advance robot builders and seriously randomly hit letters till I had something pronounceable. They are a minor note in the story so really was not worried about their name, but due to mis-click I ended up searching Google for that name... and boom! Another author who writes Power Rangers fanfic of all things is using that for the name of a tribe in his book!

Sheesh!.

[Pulpmeister]

In science fiction and fantasy, with imagined and created cultures, you have all sorts of opportunities for creating names which seem to make sense and have consistency within the world.

Imagine a society with - Greek pantheon fashion - an all-powerful major God or Goddess, and a court of lesser goddesses. Call the all-powerful god, for instant, Abar.

Many names common today are contructed with elements of gods' names. Do the same. So several characters could have 'ab', aba' 'bar' or 'abar' as elements in their names. Not all of course, just a sprinkling.

The elements, combined with suffixes and prefixes, open room for other names similarly structured using other gods. This then gives you a sort of overall style of names where you can make up names which have no god elemnts, but seem to belong to that culture.

With several different alien cultures in one book, several different sets of cultural touchstones will almost automatically give inspiration for another set of names.

And place names of course. If you have your fictional geography mapped out, your have roots for numerous other names. Throw in patronymics and matronymics and you've got an infinite variety.

Then choose the ones which are easy to type without tangling your fingers every time.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I use two methods, depending on the story type. If I want natural-sounding names (which fit most of my stories), I troll around the online lists of names looking for a combination that sounds like a name a mother would give her child (so, no "Stockwell Simeon"-type names in my stories).

For adventure fare, I will often choose a name that is more dramatic, like "Kestral" (small bird of prey, good for a heroine), find a complementary first or last name, like "Carolyn," and I'm good to go. I do enjoy the extra leeway you get when writing an SF or fantasy story, and I have taken full advantage there, creating names that fit alien characters and futuristic but still human-sounding names.

But I always stay mindful of going too far overboard, lest the names start to sound too over-the-top in aggregate, or so hard to type or pronounce that they interrupt the flow of reading (or writing).

[JJArgus]

The only time I've really had this problem was when writing fantasy. For real world stuff I keep a file of names I know/have encountered, and like. When I create a character in my head I look trough this file for a name which resonates with the character I have in mind. And yes, they are all easily pronounceable. I have read stories where people invent complicated welsh style names with way too many consonants and I trip up on them constantly.