Naming Fictional Characters

Advice from an Ultracrepidarian

I’ve named my way into a dilemma. Leonard Legasse has been the main character in the four novels I’ve written. In three of them, it is the same character. But not in the fourth and, wouldn’t you know it? – it’s the first one that’s been accepted for publication. This is my best advice on naming fictional characters.

Technically, it’s easy to change names. In Word: “Find – Replace All.” But I love Leonard. He’s been with me for six years. Len, Lenny, Leonard – liquid on the tongue, luscious, lewd, languid,  and his love interest Lydia. L’s lingering sound is softer than most consonants, weightier than vowels. I’ve postponed a serious search until one of these three novels finds a publisher.

Picking the “right” names for characters is challenging. Just ask Tolstoy. “Hey, Leo. In War and Peace, why’d you do it? I mean: Dolgorukov, Dokhturov, Dolokhov, and Dolokhova? Seven Rostovs and Rostovas? Even two Tolstoys. 183 names, some a block long.”

Oy! We don’t need an answer. If you plan to publish today, you’d better trim the head count. Still doesn’t make it easy. The first draft of my book Death Postponed had 80 named characters. Nobody would read it. I might be a slow learner, but the tenth and final draft, the one that’s been published, has 25.

Another mistake: When I based characters on people I knew, I used their names to help me keep them in mind, intending to change them later – which I did. But it got confusing. I’d forget I made the change or what the new name was. Finally, I made a list of the changes, referred to it, and used the find and replace feature to straighten it all out at the end. Now I use names I don’t have to change – except Leonard and Lydia.

Authors have varying methods for naming characters. Choices are shaped by ethnicity, religion, culture, and historical time period, of course. But even with these constricts there are still thousands of choices.

How does one choose suitable names?

The process is subjective, but there are articles that attempt to help: “The 7 Rules of…” “8 Tips for…” “How to choose…” The following give differing but overlapping advice.

http://nybookeditors.com/2016/04/how-to-choose-character-names/   Includes links to character name generators. If you use Scrivener, you already have one.

http://thescriptlab.com/screenwriting/character/creating-characters/684-name-that-character-top-ten-tips  Practical advice.

http://jodyhedlund.blogspot.com/2015/11/8-tips-for-picking-meaningful-character.html  Reader comments expand the discussion to include genre and historical fiction.

My Process

I confess that I never studied how to select names and none of the many writing workshops I’ve attended covered the subject, but critiques have helped. In my crime novel, Bob became Salvatore and Joe became Giuseppe, which better fit their characters and are easier to remember.

Since my novels are set in New York in recent times, I narrowed my choices down to the 5494 first names (1219 male. 4275 female.) found in the 1990 US Census: http://names.mongabay.com/male_names.htm

I picked dozens of familiar names from the middle of the lists to eliminate the too popular ones, then I whittled them down as I matched them with various surnames. (Note: not all names can be found on the census list. While it contains “Gus” and “Gustavo” they omitted my name Gustaf as well as the more common “Gustav” and “Gustave.”)

I looked elsewhere for surnames because there are 50,000 in the US Census. For many characters, ethnicity drove my search, so I consulted much smaller lists, ones with Italian and Jewish names for example, easily found online.

For Death Postponed, I picked names which seem to fulfill much of the advice in the articles referenced above. Sheer coincidence. My criteria was they all had to sound right, fit the character, and be sufficiently unique from one another that a reader wouldn’t be confused.

Salvatore and Camille Palermo. Giuseppe “The Bishop” Romano. Benny “The Book” Boginski. I think you get a whiff of character from these names. For balance, throw in Ted and Bunny Lipman, Sharon Hatfield, Abby Legasse and Jordan Marshfield. Familiar, but not common names, and a lot easier to remember than Tolstoy’s minions.

Naming demands a lot of searching plus time to process and let the subconscious play. When the ensemble grows, it brings further name jostling. Finding names is an art. If it sounds right (always read your work aloud) and feels right, go with it.

      A few more ideas:

• One author sends drafts of his work in progress to friends, who bid for the right to name minor characters. He donates the proceeds to the bidders’ charities of choice.
• Another labels characters with a code (eg. MC1 for main character) and assigns names once they’re fully developed.
• An author of historical fiction finds names in New England graveyards, obituaries, and books written during the time of the story.
• Name dictionaries contain origins and meanings. Handy for crosschecking appropriateness.
• I’ve used names which are anagrams. Eg. Kermit Remkit, Margie Mirage, Elbert Treble. These appeared in a comedic short story. Find anagrams at http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

(Thanks to Arlene Kay, Alan Milner, and Elizabeth Cole Sheehan for their contributions.)

Gustaf Berger, author Death Postponed 

5 Tips To Writing The Story Of Your Own Life

It seems incredibly easy to write about yourself. You know exactly what has happened and many events are very important to you. But if a good memoir could result from simple enumerating and describing of events, anyone would do it. Any person can tell about their life, but the point is to make it interesting to the reader. Here are some tips on what you should do if you are eager to prove that you are a real memoir writer.

#1 Try to Make a Difference
Sometimes, it happens that a story of someone’s life is much more exciting than any fictional one. Don’t think that your life is quite ordinary. Anyone has a unique experience and anyone is able to make it work for others. The point here is to put it in the right words and believe in yourself. We have plenty of vivid examples when memoirs by renowned authors didn’t interest the audience. We also have other examples when people of really great professions, such as astronauts, scientists, and artists, have made the stories of their lives the bestselling masterpieces. Even those whose lives are quite common are able to find their ways to reach the reader.

#2 Never Write for Money
A writer as a profession is very inspiring today. The times when once a popular writer could be penniless and die in oblivion are long gone. Today’s famous writers are wealthy and influential. That is why more and more people try to become writers. Some of them mistakenly choose memoir as ‘the easiest genre.’ Moreover, their initial goal is to sell their stories but not to convey anything to the reader. The overwhelming majority of such ‘writers’ get really disappointed with the result. So do their readers.

#3 Mind the Structure
There are many stories of real people’s lives that start like ‘I was born…’ Even if you decide to build your plot as a timeline, you have to expose your ideas at the beginning. Otherwise, readers will see it as a typical sequence of facts. Your story is to have a clear introduction and the development of the plot. The climax must be the most difficult part of such story. Because, unlike those of many fictional characters, your story has not ended yet. So, one of the main tips to write the story is to make the climax correspond to your main idea.

#4 Find the Main Theme and the Main Idea
Yes, the story is about what happened to you. But this is not nearly enough for the central theme. Try to be as specific about who you are as you can. From the first lines of your story make it clear why you’re worth reading about. For example, you run your own business. Put it as following ‘the one who managed to do something’ or ‘the one who faced particular circumstances.’ You have to stand out from the crowd. Don’t try to be superior or wiser than most people. It is not actually you who should teach readers something but your experience. The way you faced it and the conclusions you’ve made are to be the basis of your main idea, which is an initial part of your life story telling. Even the driest CV has the main idea, that is you’re good for the job, for example. The main idea in literature is different, but it is as important. It is a hard task to work it out. It can correspond with the thoughts the reader already has. But your arguments and standpoint are to be original. It only seems that it is impossible to copy someone else’s work when you write your own story. All the people are different for sure, but their ideas can be quite similar. Try to find your own opinion before you start writing.

#5 Live Your Life as if You Are Writing a Story
Presumably, you have something to write about now, but a person never stops developing. Your decision to write a story of your life is a great step forward, but it shouldn’t be your ultimate goal. Remember, you can write more new stories after this one is finished. It’s only up to you what it’s going to be like. Take new chances. Don’t wait for your memoir to be a bestseller. You can still succeed if it fails. On the other hand, if it doesn’t, don’t stop at the top! Seek new experiences and create new stories.

Even professional writers can struggle with writing their own story. First of all, it’s quite private, and some are not sure what they can reveal and what they should hide. Secondly, when the idea of a fictional novel comes to you, alongside it comes the plot. When you write a memoir, the sequence is quite the opposite. Besides, the lack of self-confidence can prevent many writers from picturing their lives. The task is really hard. But knowing the basics of the genre, creating a good plot, and believing in yourself will help you get into the exciting and diverse world of autobiographical literature.

Sophia Clark graduated from the University in the City of New York with B.A. in Journalism, 2011. She is a creative writer from New York who loves to share her thoughts with readers. In her free time, she enjoys writing fiction as well as reading it. Her big dream is to publish a novel one day.