How to Choose Your Characters' Names

How to Choose Your Characters’ Names

You’d think giving your characters names would be really simple, wouldn’t you? But it’s not. Naming characters is an important part of the process of creating your story and giving it authenticity. Think about it. You are planning a novel set in working-class Victorian England and you want to use Star Meadows for your character’s name. What kind of impression do you think that name will give your readers? It’s more likely they’ll think she’s from a modern family that follows some kind of hippy ideology, rather than a poor mill worker’s daughter living in a Victorian slum.

So how do you choose names for your characters? Well, you need to take several factors into consideration, these are:

Age of character: This makes a big difference on how you name your character. It’s often the case that names come and go in popularity; for example, when I was growing up in the 80s, there were lots of Sarahs, Samanthas, Andrews and Pauls. And, we would have found it hilarious and old fashioned had someone been called Fred, Harry, Olive or Violet. However, today these names are frequently on the lists of most popular children’s names! But, in general, if your character is elderly they are likely to have a name like Ted or Mildred and if they are young you can get away with Kylie, Rhianna and Tyson. Fortunately, it’s easy to find out what names were the most popular in any given year by simply searching on the internet.

Time the story is set: If the story is set in the future, you can pretty much make up whatever name you like – Borfy Flybinger for example. If the story is set in the recent or more distant past, you’d do well to carry out some research on the most popular names of that era to ensure your character has authenticity. For example, it is unlikely that anyone from the middle ages would have a name like Cindy – they are more likely to be a Marian or a Berta.

Class or background of character: This is most acutely obvious when talking about aristocracy, as they usually don’t have names like Brown or Smith. They are more likely to have a name like Fortescue or DeHamblyn. And, there are often names that run in families, so you might see something like Charles Van Baron III. They also choose names that have a strong meaning, for example Augustus (the venerated or exalted one) or Victoria (the Victorious one). It is common for aristocracy to have more than one first name too. In fact, some have what would seem like ridiculously long names, such as the former King of Spain, whose full name is Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbon y Borbon-Dos Sicilias!

Nationality of the character: This is a fairly obvious one - if your character comes from India, he’s not likely to be called Patrick O’Flannery. And if he comes from China, he’s unlikely to have a name like Pete Merton either. So, make sure you choose names appropriate to their country of origin if you hope to make your characters believable.

Location of the story: This relates to the ‘land’ or country the story takes place in. For example, if your story is set in a fantasy land with sorcerers and goblins, you could use names like Mordred Blandragan or Griffor Bettlegrot. If the fantasy land is on another world, you can really go wild, although it’s useful to keep in mind that any name you give a character should be easy to pronounce and here’s why: imagine picking up a new book and the main character’s name is L’trupindt. Would you know how to pronounce that? This is important because you say the words to yourself when you are reading and any words that make you hesitate, stumble or break the flow of your reading are not good.

So, there you have it! Now go forth and create characters with great and memorable names. And, don’t ever underestimate the power, or longevity, of a great character name. After all who could forget Miss Marple, Harry Potter or James Bond!