Advice for Young Writers:

Naming Your Characters

At first glance, naming characters may seem like the simplest of all writing-related tasks. Some writers flip through baby books and take whatever name strikes their fancy. Others prefer name generators: just click a button and get the name you need!


But when you really think about it, a name is a fairly important part of your character. The name is usually what readers encounter first, before they know anything about the personality or internal struggles of a character.


Pre-conceptions


Names mean different things to different people. Maybe one of your readers had a bad experience with someone named Heidi, so they’ll automatically dislike your Heidi. Perhaps they have a good friend named Jim, so they’ll go in liking your Jim, even if he happens to be the villain.


Now, there isn’t anything you can do about other people’s conceptions, but it would be a good idea not to let your own friends/enemies’ names taint your characters. You probably wouldn’t name your favorite character after someone you hate, but even if you name a “good” character after a friend, you’ll bring memories of that friend to your character. That may or may not be a bad thing, but most of the time your characters will end up feeling like cardboard cut-outs of your friends, forcing you to think, “What would Anne say in a situation like this?” “I don’t think Tom would be that stupid…” and so on.


Famous People


Sometimes you’ll name your character after someone famous without realizing it. Your muse is drifting around, trying to come up with a name, and so it grabs onto the first name that comes to mind: the news anchor you saw last night. It has a certain ring to it, so you use it, only to find out (in the middle of the twelfth chapter) where the name came from. Oops.


How to avoid this? Google character names when you first come up with them. Do this in the deciding stages, not after you’ve used the name in four or five chapters: the longer you use a name, the harder it will be to change it later.


What’s so wrong with using a famous person’s name? Again, it forms pre-conceptions in people’s minds. Readers will be getting a jolt every time they see “George Clooney” getting paged. You don’t want your character’s names to distract people from the story.


Tongue-In-Cheek Naming


The nasty girl is called Deborah Mean. The rich man is called Scrooge Rich. It may seem funny at first, but using such obvious names to describe your characters can make them stereotypical: the selfish rich man is a selfish rich man all the way through. There’s nothing else he thinks about. Every action he does, from childhood onwards, is about being selfish and rich.


Give your characters real names. Make them real people.


Ethnic Correctness


Your black American character has a Japanese anime name. Nothing really wrong with that, but it is a little . . . weird. If you want to give your characters names that are unusual for their nationality/time period/etc, let there be a good reason for it. (Maybe his father is an anime freak. Maybe his anime name is a nickname he chose for himself, for example.)


Names bring random personality quirks together and give them a title: This is Kent, the guy who rides horses and wears blue shirts. Choosing names can be an enjoyable pastime, but take care to choose names that do more than just “feel right” or “sound cool”. This name stands for your character, who he is, what he’s like.


Choose well.


Writing Exercise: July


Take out a piece of writing that you’ve been working on. If you aren’t writing anything at the moment, get some past piece of writing. Find the main character’s name and write it down on another sheet of paper.


Underneath the character’s name, write what the name means to you. Under that, write everything you know about the character. Do the two lists match? Do you feel like your character’s name reveals something about him/her even before he/she does a single thing?


Writing Exercise: August


Write a short piece describing a room. The room can be real or imaginary, and can even be in an alternate universe if you wish. Use all five senses, sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste in the description. If you want to convey the “emotion” of a room, you can also add that in. Once the description is done, think about the things that could happen or have happened in that room. Write about those things.

Bio: Elizabeth Chayne works as a writer and writing tutor. She can be reached at elizabethlchayne@gmail.com