the snowflake project

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   Sharon #

   12.20.2010 22:23

   1

   Hey Bucket,

   I like your character names. I’d like to talk a little about character names. How do you decide on the names? Are they someone you know, you’ve heard of, or do you just simply make them up? They’re interesting and easy to read (by read, I mean they roll off the mind well). How important do you think your characters names are? I feel that they are the most important part of the novel. I know, it’s a strong statement,that’s just how I am, opinionated. On a more serious note, the writer has to be comfortable living with the people in his/her head. I have a harder time with the protagonist’s name than the antagonist. I can always pull up someone I don’t paticularly like and use their name, that helps me. I find it much more difficult to name the good guy. Just wondering if you have any tips on naming characters.

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  basil #

  12.21.2010 17:24

  2

  Hi Sharon,
  Thanks! For Kos and Achi, I just started dreaming up random syllables. I knew I wanted their names to be short. Their characters are very loosely based on Buddhist monks who eschew (there’s a $10 word for you) all aspects of ego and “the self”, such as long, important sounding names. I chose them solely because they sounded good. Other methods I sometime use for naming characters is to use online translation tools (Google Translate, etc.) to translate an English word or concept into a foreign language, then derive a name from the translation. I knew someone named Arrianne when I was a kid, and I always liked her name – it sounds very aristocratic, so it was an obvious choice (I changed the spelling a touch to individualize it). Torik actually came from the name Tarek, which I chose because he’s a bit of a trickster, a rogue, and it sounds like “trick”. I agonized over Sky-Kicker. I tried to find an elfish sounding name – but my elves are so different from typical elves that nothing I was doing sounded right. In the end, I decided that Sky-Kicker’s people were best represented by Aboriginal Americans, so I gave him an English tribal sounding name that evokes some thought of magic.

  I agree with you that names are very important – however, how they sound, or “roll off the mind” is more important than what they mean or how they’re chosen.

  I always try to find somewhat unique names for my characters – I also liked what Robert Jordan did in the Wheel of Time series: take common English names and mess with their spelling a little, or invent a new long form for a common short form. Mat becomes Matrim, etc.

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