The Name Game

What can you learn from a person's name?

There's a whole lot of information packed into those two or three (or more) words that mean YOU. Your first name was chosen by your parents, so it tells us something about them. It usually hints at their education level, where they're from, and their socio-economic status. Certain names can indicate political leanings and religious affiliations. The last name, something handed down to you through the generations, can tell us something about the nationality of your ancestors on at least one side of the family, and if you've hyphenated it with your mother's last name then we get a double-dose of information.

Your first name can also tell us your approximate age. Go to the Social Security Administration's baby names database to find out the most popular baby names in any given year. If you go to an elementary school classroom today, you're probably not going to find a student named Donald or Shirley (popular in the 1930's).

And this is only when we're talking about real people.

Your fictional character's name tells your reader a lot about the story. You, as the author, have chosen that name, so the reader uses it not only to judge you as an author, but to make predictions about the story you are going to tell. An attractive name can be just as an important draw for the reader as your book's title.

Character names should match the setting. Historical fiction is easy - just do your research. For fantasy, you have to ask yourself what branch of the genre are you working in. What mythologies are you drawing on? Go there to find good character names. But please, I don't want to see any more female heroines named Kira, Kia, Kaya or the like. Please.

Fantasy writers do have the option of entirely making up names. But no matter how you try, you can't make up a name that WON'T evoke something in your reader's mind. In fact, why would you want to attach a totally meaningless word to any of your characters anyway? Pack some extra information in your prose. Choose a name that tells me something about the person wearing it.

A few cautions when it comes to naming characters:

1. Avoid names that are difficult to pronounce, and names that could be pronounced multiple ways.
2. For a group of characters in a story, avoid using names that start with the same letter. Readers will get those characters mixed up.
3. In your prose, don't use multiple names for the same character. They may be called different names by different other characters in dialog, but you as the narrator need to pick one name and stick to it. An exception would be when a character's name actually changes in the course of the story, and you make the transition clear and stay consistent with the new name.

I've already mentioned the Social Security Administration website as a good place to go look for names. There are also several name databases on the internet, and even some fantasy character name generators.
Have fun, but remember! Character names are important. In fact, your main character's name may be the most common word in your entire manuscript. Choose it carefully.