Finding Names

I love looking for names, but pick ones as quickly as possible. Researching is fun and I get distracted. Also, I’m pretty geeky, like researching, and get distracted easily. But I guess how to apply which naming method to which story and the process speeds me up a little or shows new ways to find names. Being dyslexic, I have a lot of trouble with names and languages, but, unfortunately, enjoy working with them.

Every so often, I find a name that looks nice as a sequence of letters, then spend a long time learning to pronounce it. Or I try to write down a name that sounds nice in my head and can’t.

Some names fit characters well immediately. The characters need a name, but I don’t always have an opinion about whether or not the names fit. Theoretically, I might not develop the character enough or he might not show up enough to determine the suitability. On the other hand, the reader might have his own opinion about what name would suit a character in the situation. Some names probably grate against a reader who knows more about the character's situation than me.

Though I can overthink names, sometimes persnicketiness matters. And I can’t predict when to be picky. I think more about whether the names generally coordinate with the story. Most people don’t choose their own names, so I think about demographics, family customs, and naming conventions. When I’m familiar with a naming system, picking out names speeds up, so sometimes I spend a while developing the system. Reading about naming conventions in general helps me conlang names and it’s interesting. Symbolism and meaning matters to some characters’ backgrounds. A character’s name might sound better with her born surname better than her married name. A character might be opinionated in the story about which name to use when and why, though that can be shown instead of told.

In most stories written over the past year, I use lists of the most common names for a specific time or place, like from the Social Security website or genealogy sites. Plenty of baby-naming sites list the name’s popularity, usually into the 1800s. Finding a name’s popularity earlier is difficult. Most names in Wolftown came from the Social Security first name lists and a list of Wisconsin surnames, and I spend minimal time choosing them and really only pay attention to the balance of Germanic names and non-Germanic names.

Quite a few sites list thousands of names, even from archaeological finds. Linguists don’t necessarily know how to pronounce the names, so I fill in missing sounds from Anglicized words. English probably corrupted the pronunciation and I made it worse, but the words are writeable and readable in English. When naming characters from unfamiliar times, places, or social groups, I compare multiple name lists carefully. I might be looking at the wrong thing, the names might vary significantly depending on social or historical factors I don’t know, the compilers could have miscategorized them, and the lists may have other problems I can’t recognize.

Also, I have a list of interesting names, which I tend to save for characters predicted to be important. Reading name lists, and paying attention to credits and acknowledgments probably feeds the names into my brain.

I change names while writing (even in the same paragraph) and double-check the consistency while editing. I know the characters’ identities, and since nobody reads the early drafts, confusion about little details matters much less than the storytelling. Also, multiple characters might be combined into one, and it’s possible to waste time thinking about their names and other details. (Sometimes, figuring out details helps me combine characters. I guess which while writing.)

If stopping to name interferes with a writing flow, I’ll call the character, “the [noun]”, with the noun being the role, the relationship to a character, or another distinguishing word. Some never need a name or they are better known by the description.

Changing or finishing a name might be at the last minute, thanks to search-and-replace. Sometimes I have trouble keeping track of the names; I accidentally gave a Wolftown character two different names and had to correct it after publishing. I'm guessing that making a list of characters and aliases would prevent it.

For a minor character, a member of a large cast, or another if the name seems unimportant, I basically scribble a name tag and slap it on him. Occasionally the character becomes important and has to put up with a random name that stuck. If the character is important enough or I’m unfamiliar with his background, I spend more time on naming. If the names seem too familiar, I google them, and if the name is too distinctive and somebody already has it, I change it.

When trying not to interrupt a writing flow, I just stop for a few seconds and the name pops into my head. Then I try out a few ones, like filling in a crossword puzzle, sometimes by looking for similar names. I might have a name list open, or spending a couple minutes looking at one gives my brain a break while being productive.

Writing the character without permanently naming him can give me enough information to find his name. I might think of the name or know which keywords to use. Also, figuring out the name occasionally leads me to useful details or somebody else’s name. Sometimes I need to spend time focusing on the character’s name. I try to search for names outside composing time, but sometimes I have to figure out the name. An unnamed character might be hard to write, maybe because finding a name digs up details about the character or story.

While looking for names, sometimes I list choices, which identify similarities and differences between names, the language, and the story, like finding a flavor or a clash. I try to limit the choices to two or three, but some characters have several options.

To conlang, I combine syllables or sounds randomly with each other, leaving off endings and the like until I have time to figure them out. I change existing names slightly if the language relies heavily on an existing language. For example, Elissa became Alisha. Unaltered names might fit, but for a current work-in-progress, I’ve been checking the names’ origins and replacing names when the characters wouldn’t be involved with the origin cultures. Breaking real words into prefixes, stems, and suffixes, and recombining them works well for me. The meaning might matter or they just need to sound good together. I had this idea because, as a Latin and Greek teacher, my dad could predict the effects of J. K. Rowling’s spells and her character’s identities.

Aliens are a nightmare to conlang and it’s because I assume alien vocal tracts and human vocal tracts are very different. So far, I’ve experimented with giving aliens Human names, approximating the aliens’ sounds to the human vocal cords, and translating alien words into a human language, although the translated thing might just vaguely look alike on Earth and the alien’s planet. “Coral” on Earth is an animal, but a planet’s “coral” might legitimately be a rock; I’m not sure. If aliens use robotic translators, I still have to write the sounds down somehow.

One story has particularly finicky names. The main character’s name is Charles Morgan; the antagonists make sure they have the right Charles Morgan. The antagonists and probably other people triple-check that they have the right Charles Morgan. The time travelers regularly alter their names to suit different historical periods or to keep their identities separate. The royalty tend to have long names and pick them carefully, based on tradition. I spent months calling one character her nickname, Classics, before figuring out her real name, Persephone, chosen because of her family’s interest in mythology. But only Charles may call her Classics; he invented it from a button on her bag. Other characters in the same work rely on codenames, and if they decide to use usernames, at least Charles has a strong urge to yell at them. An important character picked out the codename Macmillan. He wanted to be called Macmorris from Henry V, but I thought Macmorris’ name was Macmillan. By the time I noticed, Macmillan stuck—Macmorris was wrong. Macmillan and Persephone argue about which name Shakespeare used, everybody calls him Macmillan, and I’m not convinced anybody bothered looking up the answer. (Persephone argued for MacMorris.) Calling Mr. Tambling-Goggin anything else feels wrong, though characters use other names. He needed a British-sounding slightly odd name, which probably came from a list of rare British names. I can’t exactly remember its origin, but when it showed up, it was perfect. (This paragraph sounds like the elements should not go together, but they do, at least to me.)