How do you name your characters?

This is something I've always had trouble with, and it doesn't just apply to Star Wars fanfic - it applies to all the fictional work I do.

How do you go about naming your characters? Do you try to find names that "sound" soft or harsh enough to match the character? In the case of Star Wars, what system do you follow to make the names sound not too Earthly, but not too silly either? (Unless the silliness is intentional, of course)

And within different species in the GFFA, are there certain distinguishing factors in character names that "match" the species of the characters?

 

Naming characters has always been my major trouble. I have a problem finding the medium between names that have a nice ring to them and names that sound cheesy.

This is with all my fiction, not just SW.

I sometimes take inspirition from other sources. By switching sounds or letters from other names.

Dave Wordon (a name I ran across in some old papers here at my job) becomes Ward Davon.

Lyle Tecter becomes Cyl Retec.

Anagrams, I guess are what I use mostly. That probably didn't help much . . .

 

Most of the time I just write a word or words that describe the character backwards. Like Lavir Ruoy is your rival. I'm terrible at thinking up names too, not to mention trying to make them look alien enough without adding a bunch of unpronouncable extraneous consonants. So, every place, thing and most of the people I make up in my stories' names are just words written backwards.

In several novels, particularly sci-fi, I've noticed the authors tend to give their major characters modern or at least familiar names of their own time. Often they just slightly alter the spelling to give it an un-earthly appearence. For example: in the Foundation prequels, a major character was named Dors, which could be pronounced Doris. In the Dune novels, there is a man named Hayt - hate.

In some books, I've seen authors use any common name and just change the first letter so that it looks both familiar and unusual. Like - Nathan to Hathan or Dathan.

 

Oh, names! I love coming up with names. Here's a short list. The trick is to keep the good guy's names short and easy to say.

Skar: The name first came when I had to create him as a son, he was the son of Koll and Sasa. Plus he had an uncle named Skind. So I kinda blended all the names together. The S, the K, the a, and finished it off an R. Later I decided it should be pronouced as "scar" because Skar is a personal with a lot of baggage in his past.

Kayupa: Kayupa I found on a page of buddhism, I can't remember exactly where but it was a teacher I think. A buddhist monk.

Shinran: Shinran was a buddist school. I have all the notes lying around somewhere, I'm just writing this off the top of my head.

Master Bo-Hi: Anyone can guess at this? Bodhisattava (I have a thing for buddhism I guess) I shorted it, and made the D disapear. Its pronounced Bow-He.

Raidoen Vamper: Raidoen is taken from Raiden, a vamper-like characther in this game I'm waiting for. And Vamper is just "vampire" rewritten. All the names say something about their characther.

Admiral Koan: A koan is a mystery in buddism, an unsolved mystery. I could be mistaking, as I said I don't have the notes with me.

Admiral Stamper: Now this guy was huge, I mean fat, so I had to think of something to symbolize that. Like a fat man coming stumping the ground, making it shake. A stamper. Almost like the bunny from Bambi.

Sorry if I offended anyone with the "fat" thing. I didn't mean to..

Bye

 

Well, for Star Wars, one good way to figure out names is to look at how Lucas himself may have chosen names. I just started a contact-search for the Star Wars Names FAQ that is a really great resource -- it examines the names of the major characters in the movies, explaining possible sources for them, what they mean in different cultures, etc.

For instance, Luke is named for St. Luke.

Beyond that, I also have a habit of scouring through name dictionaries, and jotting down interesting names in the margins of my notebooks as I come across. Also, watch your typos, sometimes a mistake at the keyboard will give you an interesting name.

And, finally, if you really get stuck for a character name, make a list of the character's qualities, then go to an online baby dictionary and start searching under the name meanings. You should be able to find something that way, too.

Sreya

 

I just look for unusual names in places like the newspaper or a phonebook is even better. Sometimes, just changing the spelling of a common name works. I've seen many cases of this in the novels.

 

It really depends on hte situation...

sometimes I'll take a name from an inspirational source... other times I'll just type a random string of letters:

alkfj ;oaz

Then turn something out:

Kal'j Zao.

Just like that.

 

I am another person who has a terrible time with names. Not just character names, but also place names.

I've used most of the techniques that have been mentioned. I am also guitly of 'borrowing' names from published fiction and changing them slightly. My friends, family, and students have their names used in a similar fashion.

 

I've found four ways.

1. Juxtapostition of random syllables. This one doesn't often work for me; I can't get it to sound natural.

2. Anagrams. The characters in my current story both have last names that are anagrams of other names.

3. Misspellings and other forms of mutilation. Lots of times I'll chop off syllables to make up names.

4. Anglicizing non-English names. German names are particularly good for this. For example, the German name "Kadriye" became "Kadria" in my current story. It doesn't sound like a name we hear everyday, but it's easier to pronounce than the original German spelling.

 

For a current story, I used the nickname of a friend of mine who died about ten years ago for one character and for the other one, I used half of my middle name. It was only meant to be a place holder until I could come up with a better name, but it just kinda stuck.

 

I use a variety of methods.

One is like the joke "How do you name a chinese restaurant? drop silverware down a well." Type random letters and then put vowels between to make the names pronouncable.

A lot of times, I'll use names or nicknames drawn from friends. Like Seren and Kaki from Between the Lines are the nicknames of Kyra (Awel on the boards) and myself.

Mostly, though, I try to have names with meaning, so I go to babynames.com, find some that fit, and adapt them.

As for worlds, just make them weird-sounding!

 

Okay, I managed to get the link for the names article:

http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/starwars/films/names20.txt

It also has speculation on some of the novel characters, such as Mara Jade. This article has been around since 1994, and I know I've found it interesting and useful over the years.

Sreya

 

a lot of my names are stolen from the bible but some of them are just obscure names. I met a girl named Katya (interestingly enough, the name Qatya appears in the X-wing series, a fact I forgot about when I named the character) and loved the name. She has a "Tatooine" last name: Stormseeker. In that I just took what I wanted her to do: stir up the storm...political storm but really same thing.

The sylable thing works sometimes. Last names for me: type in random letters and use spell check to find a cool word.

Planet names are a toughie. I like to use "real" planets as much as possible or variations on the name. For example: Bortooine.


But I have real problem with Sith names. Usually I take words and change their spellings, but notice that 'Maul' and 'Bane' are both spelled correctly. I'm going crazy with Sith names. Any help?

 

I usually try to make a conscious decision on whether the name sounds 'hard' or 'soft'.

I also make an effort to not have too many characters whose names start with the same letter. Sometimes I just randomly pick initials and try to make a name that fits.

But basically I just start the brain churning and spit out weird names until one sounds right. Then I have to decide whether it is a first name or a last name. I've come up with several first names that ended up being surnames.

 

i have to just sit there and concetrate then one will fly through the air and hit me that is how i got three of my characters names

or uses the the first two letters of your last name and then the first two or three of your first name that works

 

Although my fic Gone But Not Forgotten is now close to a year old (as of the date I started writing--only about 6 months since posting ended), I feel like bothering everyone by telling my inane stories of how I came up with names.

Melné Cr'tor, female protagonist, was easy. My initials are JW, but the initial ring I have looks like MC when seen upside-down. Melné is a Nubian version of Melanie. Cr'tor is based off a "Find Your Star Wars Name" contest held on the radio shortly before TPM came out. I added the apostrophe.

Ender Lusek is pretty obvious. He's kind of a combination of Ender Wiggin, Luke Skywalker, and someone else I know. I actually started off with the name Ender as a proxy, but I liked how it sounds. (The origins of the name Ender are from the novel Ender's Game where the title character's sister mispronounced "Andrew.") Lusek is merely an anagram of Luke S.

Wynni Khol was a little whimsical. The first name was from a story I wrote several years ago, and the last name was from a typo. I had forgotten it was an actual name!

 

{gapes in stunned amazement} WoooOOOOoooow... That's almost unbelievable...

 

I enjoy finding names. I like to draw from
old english, Celtic or mythology. Sometimes I use names of people I know, or unusual town names, or just drop a letter or two in a regular name.
Another thing I do is check the obituary column, or a phone book and take two last names and put them together. You can get some interesting combos that way.

 

Liz Skywalker: Sith names are tough, but here are soem I use (they are mostly misspellings on real words)
Darth: Fyre, Pheere, Ruel, Vinge, Khandar(one of my favorites), Baraaj, Pane, Crool, Riip

My favorite way to do it is to flip through my Star Wars Encyclopedia, find some random first and last names, and mix and match for a good fit. It works, and its fast and easy.

For planets, just look at the map in the inside of any NJO book. Lots of planets on there are barely used, so you can create a lot of info on them yourself.

Perator

 

Use common mythological or semi-mythical names for characters. As for planets, use our own stars. GL did. Alderaban, the Royal Star, the Flaming Torch? Alderaan? DUH!

 

I also find some car names to be good sources of inspiration for names of pretty much anything.

 

Did you know that there's a star in the Milky Way which is called "Aldebaran"? And there's another one, pretty small, but it has a cool Arabic name: Zuben Elgenubi. And as one guide in Greenwich Planetarium said during the show, when he was showing this star to us, "it's the only star in the Universe that rhymes with the name Obi-Wan Kenobi. Zuben Elgenubi." Cool, huh?

Anyways, I make up the names for my characters randomly, from a scratch, or I just use some interesting word I see somwhere and mix up the letters a bit (add, delete, divide...). But of course, the names depend on the characters. For example:

Shaan Arris, Padawan - I made up her first name from the actual name "Sean", because I like the name. So I just wrote it in different way.

Corless, small foresty planet in the Outer Rim - I just imagined the little green planet with two ice capes on poles, and the name popped into my mind (actually "les" means forest in Slovak. You pronounce it as "less")

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If you need a name for your character and want some suggestions, just PM me, and give me the species, gender and short description of the character (so I can make up a name that fits him/her). I'm willing to help!

 

Naming a charactor takes lots of time and thoughts (ecspecialy a main char) I took three weeks to develop the main charactor for the fanfic I am right now working on... There have been lots of changes to my story since I slowly have been forming a story in my head... whew is it a weird one...

Try searching through books you have read a grabbing a charactor name from one of those.

 

Magic 8 Ball, works everytime!

 

My source: Matthew Trias. I don't know how he does it, but he can make up names like no one else!

i, on the other hand, am terrible at naming. so i ask him, and within about 10 seconds i have a name!

YV names are especially hard IMO, and a while back i made a thread in fanfic asking for a brainstorm of names.