What’s In A Name?

Elizabeth Rose

How many times have you sat down to write, only to be hampered by the fact you don’t know what name to give a character?

This used to happen to me all the time. I’d be cranking along on a story and come to a dead stop because I needed a name for my villain or the hero’s brother and couldn’t come up with one.

I used to have a list. I’d typed up all sorts of favorite names I’d found in baby naming books, plus their meanings. Then when I needed a name – presto- I’d go to my list and find one.

There are many character naming books nowadays written especially for writers in such situations. My favorite source book I use religiously is one put out by Writer’s Digest, called Character Naming Sourcebook by Sherrilyn Kenyon. There is also a book called First Name Reverse Dictionary by Yvonne Navarro. With this book you look up a meaning you want and it gives you a name and origin. For example, if I want a name that means ‘forest’, I look up forest and find out that meaning goes along with the name Lin, which is Chinese. If I’m writing a fantasy about a woodspirit, I would find the name attached of Vedis, which is Old German.

Ethnic Names

When naming a character there are many things to keep in mind. Where the character’s roots come from, for one. If you’ve got a Scottish hero with a name like Vladmir Petrov, I don’t think your readers are going to accept this unless you have a good explanation. But use an authentic Scottish name, perhaps keeping the clans in mind, and name your hero Ian MacDougall, and it’ll carry more weight.

Even using traditional names you have to be careful so you don’t get yourself in trouble. Scottish clans were from the Highlands as well as the Lowlands, and the surnames reflect it. The Lowlanders mingled with the English and some of their surnames are very English sounding compared to the many Mac Whatevers from the Highlands.

Hard and Soft Sounds

Certain letters of the alphabet give soft or hard sounds – therefore making your character’s name harsh or gentle. For example, a name starting with K, T, or V would probably be an alpha character – strong, straightforward, and courageous. A name starting with an R, M or E would probably be a character more reserved, beta, or just gentle and nurturing. But even a name starting with a soft letter can still end up hard depending on the other syllables in the name choice. For example, Rooney is a soft name, but if you change the N to a D – Rudy is a bit stronger, while still starting with the soft sound of R. Add a T in front of the R and you end up with Trudy – a strong, harder name yet.

Name Meanings

Another fun way to name your characters is by the meaning of the name. Calvert means shepard, Garrett means spear-brave, and Hastings means violent. If I needed a minister, a knight and a villain, using this method would be easy to decide which name to assign to each of the characters.

Names Ending In S

I write Greek myth fantasy romance, and needless to say, many of the Greek names end in S. I would not suggest deliberately choosing a name ending with S if you don’t have to. It becomes awkward with possessiveness. I chose the name of Kyros for my hero in Kyros’ Secret. It is a good, strong, harder sounding name which fit well with the second son of a king who wants to someday be ruler. The name means ‘master’ and he truly is the master, trying to unite the Trozens and the centaur race, even with the terrible curse that’s been placed upon him by the god of war.

The name worked well, but then I had the problem of deciding where to place the apostrophe. According to The Portable English Handbook, I had the choice of showing possessiveness by adding -’s- or just putting the apostrophe after the existing s, which is what I did. When I say it, it’s Kyros’ Secret, not Kyros-ses Secret. Sure, I understand this, and it is legitimate, but everyone and every place ends up spelling it as Kyro’s Secret, which drives me crazy. So I warn anyone against using a name that ends with an S if you don’t have to. Especially if it’s in the title! (In my next myth, The Oracle of Delphi, I deal with the problem once again with Perseus. But since Perseus is the original myth name, I had no choice!)

Surnames

I believe surnames came about in the middle ages. And even when they first got started, it was simple. The tailor’s last name was Taylor, and the candle maker’s last name was Chandler, while the blacksmith’s last name was Smith, and the baker’s – Baker.

Then they started having surnames stating where the person was from. For example, Sir Roger of Roxbury would end up being called Sir Roxbury. Lord John of Stanton would be Lord Stanton.

Then, there is the very old way of deriving a surname, which is by just saying ‘son of’ so and so. Let me give an example. When using an Irish name, M, Mc or Mac means son of. So McDonald means ‘son of Donald’. Using a surname like O’Donald would mean grandson of Donald. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as they even had prefixes for ‘servant of’ and ‘wife of’.

Identifying Names

One last way to name a character is by description. Maybe you’ve got a Western where your character has allergies and always has itchy, red eyes. You may call him Red Eyed Jack or something like that.

Perhaps you have a character who cheats at cards or deceives people easily. Snake might be a good name for him.

See if a name fits your character. Eugene has a nerdy connotation to it, while Rock sounds like someone you don’t want to mess with.

So have fun naming your characters, and breathing life into the creations of your imagination. And remember next time you close your eyes and point to a name while choosing, that there is really more to a name than you think!

Elizabeth Rose

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