Expanding our universe.. Writing OC's and not Mary Sue: giving life *crackling lightning*

One of my older OC's, Vaniqa, her name actually came from hair remover (yes, this is a real product). The product's name was veniqua. I saw a commercial for it one day, loved the name (around this time i knew I was going to add another OC to my series and also what he character would be like but she didn't have a name) so I took the name veniqua and reworked it to vaniqa.

Even inspiration for OC's come from the weirdest of places.

~aeryn

 

Have to agree that picking the names is half of the fun in creating OC's. Oxygen.com has a babynamer which is where I got my three main OC's names. I had a general idea of what their back stories were and the type of people they would be and picked names by meaning. For example Jivan is a Hindi word that means life , Desimir is a Serbian name meaning great longing , and Shai is a Hebrew name meaning gift . All three names reflect how I see them in the fic. Plus they are uncommon enough that they can fit in the GFFA .

 

My original characters are basically odd extensions of myself and others I know. I molded them to reflect my own flaws (because my flaws are what I see most), and the strengths of my family and friends.

 

On the fic I?m working on now, I chose names completely by how it sounds to say them. With one exception, Tathe Ord. His last name is the Swedish word for ?word? which hints at his future.

But in a fic that is currently on hiatus due to my work on the Young Galaxians, both of the main characters have names to represent their character.
Kan Kahlid, where kahlid means eternal.
And Triche Moon from Beatrice in Dante?s Inferno.

 

Jivan is a Hindi word that means life I was wondering where you got that from! I guess that kind of explains why my brother's father-in-law has that same name

I put a LOT of thought into names--to me, it's the best part of creating an OC. Even if no one else knows the significance, I do, and it helps me write the OC. For instance, I just recently started posting my first story (but I've been kicking around bazillions of ideas for some time--they just need to be saved from Mary Sue-dom first). I wanted the OC to have a brief but memorable scene (although I hope to write more about the OC in other stories). His name is Xeo Chione. Xeo I took from a Steven Pressfield book (Gates of Fire, you MUST read it!!). Chione is a Greek word that means "snow"--fitting for the OC, a gray-furred Shistavanen. There's a quick joke that passes between Xeo and his padawan based on the whole "snow" thing, and maybe most people won't make the connection, but the joke leads right into the important part of the story.

Then again, there are times when the name doesn't really mean anything but has a nice ring to it. If I can't pronounce it without stumbling over 900 syllables, squinting at the weird lettering, or trying to wrap my tongue around the most incompatible consonant combinations, I know the name needs to be changed. That doesn't mean weird names are bad--maybe you create a species that requires long, weird names, like the Chiss. But even SW authors shorten the names or give nicknames.

Other names I've come up with:
--Elis Acheron (Acheron = River of Lamentation in the Greco-Roman Underworld)
--Marzik Bowyn (Bowyn from David Bowie, and Marzik from Bowie's "Spiders from Mars," because Marzik is a rock star )

 

Wow, you all seem to really delve into naming the OCs. Me, I chose something that sounds good. Usually, if he/she's a villian or I want to make people think that he/she is a villian, the name will be short and have a hissing sound when pronounced (Zaros, Zam, Sle'fey). Heroes usually have names that begin with vowels. I also look at names that can be shortened so that, when the characters are interacting, a nickname would be appropriate (Le'orath goes to Le'). I also use a lot of ''' to break up the names and make them look more "Star-Warsy".

Now, I'm going to have to actually look at names more often....

 

ah, names- a subject near and dear to my heart (cue the 'long-winded post' music).

I most certainly agree about the alphabet-soup type names. How many Mary-Sue names are bits of Natalia and Rhiannon remixed? A lot of people use the tried-and-true naming method wherein you take an earth name and change a few letters to make it sound a bit more alien (Leah becomes Leiah, Jason becomes Jacen) or change sylables until you get something interesting (Lianna > Tianna > Tianne > Tionne). This can work amazingly well, but if you try too hard, you get soup, and generally soup with a bad vowel to consenant ratio. Picking a name based on meaning rather than sound (although sound must obviously play a part) can be helpful. Especially with all these online name databases. You can pull up names from other cultures that sound alien to us, perhaps change a letter or two, and you're good to go.

This is how I get most of my character's names- to me, the most pivotal and telling part of character creation. All of my characts have names with meanings behind them, often both in and out of character. My main antagonist in one of my stories is Jacen Trucid, from the latin Trucido, meaning to slay, butcher, or massacre.
Need a two part name? Take a multi-sylable name and put a dash in the middle. This is how Jedi Master Ken-Ji Thuy got his name (From the Japanese Kenji, meaning "strong second son").
It doesn't always have to be the name's direct meaning or translation, either. One of my characters, Hallan, was named after King Hal of Shakesperian fame. Another, Garen Lyn, takes his name from a character in the Jedi Apprentice books, which helps establish a bit of continuity within the universe (I mean, how many Johns and Catlyns do we have in THIS Galaxy? some names are simply going to be common).

As far as naming resources, I recommend http://behindthename.com for its extensive, well-researched name database and http://babyzone.com/babynames/nameinventor.asp, which is a very good name generator (also useful in the naming of planets, alien races, cities, and star systems, I've found). Be warned that Darth Popup must be slain several times before you can actually make use of the second one.

 

I have a list of names. Whenever I see a street name, or a town name, or anything else that strikes my fancy, I write it on the list. A friend of mine was getting tired and mangled the name of someone she was telling me about. I liked the sound and wrote it down.


Something I managed to discover before I started posting my most recent story was that so far all my bad guys had names that started with J. I didn't want to establish that kind of pattern, so I just dropped the J and kept the rest of the name. I have to be careful about things like that, because there are certain sounds that I like a lot and tend to use repeatedly. If I don't watch what I'm doing I wind up with confusing name that all sound alike or all start with the same letter or something else that makes likfe difficult for my readers.

 

I know what you mean lillith - but my problem is that in three of my stories (basically in every world where I have a story set) there happens to be a Mark or Marcus. Every single time. I don't know why I have a fascination with that name but I just do.

Many of my characters have earthy sounding names, but I figure that many Star Wars characters do too. I have Sara, Amy, Rohnin (Ronin), Sonnet, Tara, Davin (David), Caelum (Calam) and Fitz (as well as Marcus! ). Sonnet is perhaps my favourite name out of all of those. To me it suited the character perfectly. Fitz is my other favourite name, mainly because of its real work combination and just because it suits the character so much.

Mostly names just pop into my head while I'm developing the character and then stick and there is nothing I can do to remove them.

Kithera

 

Sometimes when I'm either bored or else doing something that requires little to know conscious thought involved, I'll mess around with syllables in my head. Then I'll write it down and play with possible spellings that either look or sound cool.

Then I put the name into a huge name list I keep and define it as either a character (in which case I usually tag two together for a first and last name), a place, or other (in which case I'll write a brief explanation of what it is).

Andric Gandurvy:
Andric I came up with from combining Andy and Eric (or maybe it was Andy and Rick, I don't remember exactly which) and Gandurvy was the last name of a character in an original fantasy series I'm writing.

Charat Hul
Charat was the name of a minor Yuuzhan Vong warrior in one of the published NJO books, and Hul I got from the Domain Hul worldship (I don't think there were actually any characters with the Domain name Hul in any of the books).

Skaph Antilles
Skaph was from the name of a crapy game that came with a pc game-making kit as a sample game called "Skaphander". Antilles, of course, is the SW equivilent of "Jones" or "Smith", but just for the record, GL got the name from the Antilles Islands (I read it in his biography or perhaps it was in one of the behind-the-scenes books I've read about the making of the OT movies).

 

Marawannabe gave me the name for one of Unforgiven's OC's: Aster Faldon, which is interesting in that "aster" means "star" in Latin...so it's almost a play on "fallen star." Which is interesting when I have her as a character obsessed with her anger.

Mostly, though, I just pick up names that fall onto my screen out of my brain. Rik Haas has no real hidden meaning, nor Colonel Rissi, etc. The only exception is Darth Raptor, where I was looking for a Sithly name and loved using a bird of prey moniker for my evil warrior.

-Tim

 

I've used the naming sites to get some of my character names, and names for planets and such. For example Toril is Hindi for temper.

Or I'll add a letter or two to an existing name to give it a different sound. Leia became Leika.

And when all else fails, I'll use an anagram. Vampire became Rampive and Wizard became Zirdaw. I've found that this is another excellant way to put meaning behind a name while making it non-earthly.

The only problem with anagrams is that some words just won't cooperate! [face_anger]

--later--
6669

 

Almost every single story I write is completely composed of OCs. I usually look through baby name books that seperate teh names into different nationalities to christen my characters.

The main character in the story I am writing to post on the Boards, Ceciana Korlic, is basically an extention of myself. Even her name is part of me; Ceci is my nickname here on the boards.

 

My names come from an interesting variety of sources. I periodically go through baby name books and write the interesting ones (with meaning) in a little campfire notebook.

My younger sister also used to be a really bad speller, but that gave rise to some of my more interesting names. (Don't worry, she was okay with it ) Two of the characters in my original work, Keky and Finin were misguided attempts at spelling key and finish respectively.

Sometimes I just play around with an existing name until something good comes of it. Half the time the name switches gender in the process. My heroine for one project, Natriba, is my little brother's name mutilated beyond all recognition.

My fanfic OCs...

Galax was just me playing around until I got a pleasing sound.

Meesu was invented by my younger sister when she was kidnapping my Kettch bear.

Terrence, Nadia, Linzie and Sacha were all just random names I liked when building the Janson family.

Ketlyn and Mitch were a bit of a joke to see if my readers were paying attention. Squish their names together and you get Kettch, so it seemed appropriate for Wes Jansons siblings.

Jeicub Is once again a bit of a joke. I knew I wanted Wes to have one more brother, but I couldn't think of an appropriate name (for some reason, I have a harder time naming males). I kept referring to him as "Currently Unnamed Brother", which in my lazy way I shortened to CUB. So I decided that I would give him a name that could be shortened to Cub and played around with Jacob until it looked sufficiently different.

Beth was actually named by one of my friends, who frequently serves as a sounding board for fics (we drove the rest of our friends nuts trying to find a non-girly diminutive for "Anakin". We spent three days on it. ) I just said "I need a name for Wes's little sister" and she gave me that one.

Rissy was kind of an interesting process. I started out thinking of a girl I used to babysit. Her name was Larissa, but we all called her Lissie. I didn't want to use that name because naming directly after someone I know IRL is too much baggage, but I played around with unusual nicknames for Larissa until I (fairly quickly ) came up with Rissy.

YubYub and TG- Protecting fangirls from hormonally gifted fanboys since 2002

 

I tend to go for pronouncable but not too earthy, based on solid-sounding old fashioned English names rather than 'in' names like Larissa or Brittney.

For example, I have an OC named Ari, which is reminiscent of 'Ani' and also 'Harry', so it's like a cross between a SW and Earth name.
Then my main OC is called Keitin, which could be a variant on Kate. She's been with me a long time. As far as I recall, she started life as Naitin, but I thought that was too much like Natalie.

 

Nah, it brings "Nathan" to mind more than "Natalie"

 

Naming your OC's can be some of the most fun in developing the character. A lot of times I simply use names of fictional characters I liked. The main OC is my story is named Rane. He was named after my favorite character in the Wild Swan Series - a historical fiction trilogy. I have found all sorts of unique names this same way.

One character that is major player to come in my latest story needed a really special name. She is intended to be a sort of Han Solo type. I had been playing with names all day when I realized Han was the word 'Hand' with the 'd' cut off. I took the word 'Feet' and cut off the 't'. Voila! A first name. Then I used a play on the name Solo, thinking along the lines of music and ended up with 'carol' which I added an 'é' to the end to give it a different feel. Thus my OC was named Fee Carolé.

 

Lots of times, I'll look to biblical names and alter them, or borrow my friends' names blatantly. My most unoriginal series of names was one where the Master was Ana, the Padawan was Ara, the partner was Yrin... And I sound too german or french with some of my OCs.

 

Well, most of my characters are non-sw, but in one case, are adaptable.

In my in-work fan fic, based off of my answer to the writers' challenge, I got the name Xander Venravder. Xander comes from Alexander, which means "protector of men" and Venravder comes from
"venturer", "traveler", and "wanderer".

I also have Garlas Azgan, where Garlas comes from Garrett and Nicholas. Garlas has two brothers, Garhett and Colas. Garhett comes from Garrett and Rhett. Colas comes from Nicholas.


Then, Laine Snowtrekker, my screename, comes from a skit I was in with my friend Dallas Valla. We were trying to spoof Star Wars with school, so we used yardsticks as lightsabers and I was based on Luke, except less whiny. Dallas was obviously based on Vader, except now we're nothing like that, since we've become our own characters in the RPF.

I have more, but I really need to get to bed. It's 11:53 PM here.

 

My favorite source of names is "The Writer's Digest Character-Naming Sourcebook."

Lots of cool stuff in there. The only problem is that I'm pretty sure at least one of the EU authors also uses it, because more than once I've accidentally given characters the same names as she gave hers. That can be weird if people think you're making a reference to something you're not.

I also use Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, which has all kinds of place names I can mutate and reuse. You have to be careful with that, though--you don't want to give your imaginary palace the same name as a notorious Southeast Asian slum.

Favorite made-up words and names:

Akitlán
Veraine
Waqkemé
Wullawumpurra
Mahavashti
Illorian

 

How I came up with Ryqik and Raqak. Well last year I was doing this typing course and it said that q is always followed by a u in the English language. I decided to rebel...

 

I'm fairly unoriginal--I take Earth-based names, first and last, and mix up the letters. I do try to make them into something pronouncable but I don't know that I have always succeeded. My most prominent OC right now is Healer Zednem Sivad (a woman).

As far as avoiding Mary Sues/Gary Stus--I had to be careful in one of my AU fics not to make Anakin into a Gary Stu. He is my favorite character and he reminds me a lot of myself, and I wanted to focus on his likable qualities. I made him a prankster, mischievous but funny, but I did make sure he still had his temper and still got overly angry (think Harry Potter in The Order of the Phoenix) and had to make amends for it later. I also made sure that some of the people that Anakin plays pranks on were good, honorable people (like Bail Organa), whom Anakin just happens to find annoying for whatever trivial reason.

 

Tracy, is that you?

 

Claro, Cat.

 

I can't really do a Halloween sock, as Sock_of_Darth_Vader is about as Sithly as you can get already.
I suppose I could go in reverse and become Sock_of_Anakin_Skywalker...which is uncomfortably Freudian

Oh, my grief...