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How do you name your characters?

NicklausLouis

NicklausLouis

I once met a woman who wrote Romance novels that named her characters by grabbing slips of paper with names written on them out of a bowl. Interestingly enough she also used this technique to plant plot twists by placing all the characters names into one bowl and some scandalous acts like "murders" or "has sex with" into another, then she'd get combinations like "Poke murders Zen" or "Indie has sex with Will Vincent."

Anyway, I think that's one way to name a character, but I prefer to give my characters names that mean something, at least to me. For instance, most of my protagonists have four letter names like "Jack" or "Mike" or "Pete" because I have a four letter name - Nick. I've also named a protag after a nickname I had in high school - "Woody." I name a lot of characters after family members. I'll switch a name up a bit if the character is solely based on someone - I had two managers at a movie theater I worked for - Todd Hecht and Stewart Bigham - I named a character based on them Todd Bigham.

How do you name your characters?

Poke
 
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"Poke murders Zen" "Indie has sex with Will Vincent." :lol: :lol:
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most of my protagonists have four letter names like "Jack" or "Mike" or "Pete"
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depends on what sort of protagonist they are - if i want an every-man then i give them such a name, but usually i give them names that suggest something different about them, to try to draw in audience - like a working class racist from Oldham called Charles, the name is out of place - an suggests that his parents wanted him out of this riot sort of thing - and that draws people into the drama, and saves time on exposition + context. sometimes don't even bother with names, or human names - and use chemical elements.


. I've also named a protag after a nickname I had in high school - "Woody."
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that was my nickname too!!!! how come? you first! did they beat you too.............



I name a lot of characters after family members.
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I used to do that and mix up the name with some one i knew and a famous historical figure. my first short story was about a man's journey through the park one sunny day. His name - Daddy Hitler :blush:
i was only 8 - and thats when i had to stop that policy............... :(
 
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I really struggle with this one and often don't name the character at all. So even in my feature No Place the two central characters are called "The Photographer" and "The Father."

The only time I name a character is when I have to use their name in dialogue. Often times I'll use the first name of the actor that I intend to cast as the character's name, so again, the character Norm in No Place is played by Norman MacFayden (great actor) because the part was written for him. Anytime the character in one of my films has a different first name from the actor it means that I didn't get my first choice actor.

The only time I change this formula is when I'm writing a script for resale rather than as a production project. Then I think it's important to have clearly defined characters, so I'll give the protagonist a first name (Tim) and identify them by that and the same with any romantic interest (Laura), then I identify the antagonist by their second name (Mr Newton). I think for selling scripts it's really important to keep the number of named characters as low as possible, if your script has Mike, Dave, John, Steve, Ray, Keith, Pete, Liam and Rob it's really easy for the reader to loose track of which character is which, especially if they are all talk the same. So in that situation I'd probably have Mike (the protagonist) first name only, the supporting characters I'd identify by some trait to make it easier for the reader "Fat Dave", "Yuppie Ray", "Body Builder Keith", "Psycho Liam."

For minor characters, anyone who doesn't travel the whole film, I use description rather than names, Marine 1, Meter Maid 2, Man in Bad Wig, etc.
 
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I named one of my characters 'Pleiades' because in her profile history I had her employed as one of the Big Dipper girls (from Melies' trademark) I know the Pleiades aren't the same star group but ,somehow, Big Dipper...not quite the same nuance. I named another character 'Hello Baker' after a real-like stunt pilot, 'Aloha Baker' (yep, not a great leap). I like to take names of favorite characters or artists and combine them: LULU (from Louise Brooks' character) DEREN (from one of my favorite filmmakers-Maya Deren), OISIAN (from the great Irish myth)TRACY (from the sleuth, Dick Tracy), SCARFACE ROSE LEE (stripper and gangster), DZIGA (Dziga Vertov) KAUFMAN (Vertov's birth name). For me, giving specific names help to flesh out a back story for each character.
 
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bird you have some great sounding names there.

I have also named folks for fav directors and actors (the character Woody's last name is Stevens, for Steven Speilberg, and his sidekick is Denis Lucas, for George Lucas). I want to name two characters Roger Richter and Roland Ready (for Roger Ready and Roland Richter, two guys I've known in my life). I like alliteration, I once named a character Tommy Trudesky.

Poke
 
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I usually don't try and put meaning behind the names and try to make them as "natural" sounding as possible -- like a NASCAR fan named Dale, or an intellectual named Henry (which i think has a stateliness to it).

When I'm really stuck, I just combine names of baseball players. My favorite so far is Helton Gamboa (Todd Helton + Tom Gamboa -- who incidentally was the coach who got beat up by a fan at Comiskey Park a couple years back).
 
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I tend to browse through lists of baby names... that works good for first names, but last names aren't as easy.. I suppose I could look at a list of 'surnames'

When I get around to it I'll post some links of that stuff.

poke said:
"Indie has sex with Will Vincent."
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I knew there had to be some catch to this moderator gig...
 
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That reminds me of a program I thought about writing..

I'm gonna write a name generator.. I'll make it available online.. will post a link when it's done in a day or so.

Yeah, I know there probably are some already, but big deal.
 
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well since it's gonna be available to people for free.. at least for now.. I'll have to skip over poke then.

I've just started building the list.. So far I've gathered about 11000 surnames. :)

Correction, just shy of 17,000 surnames. ;)
 
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So I got to thinking about this name generator I'm gonna write..

initially I will write the name-gen, and have it available online as a script that you can use on the website... would people be interested in a downloadable version?

I'm also thinking of expanding the idea into a 'Character Generator' where it will take some basic choices from you: Age (teen, young adult, middle age, etc), M/F, etc... and generate not only their name but their birth date, character type, and other pertinent character info. That I'm sure I would probably sell as a writers tool, not only for screenwriting, but novel writing and the like too. I would probably need some beta-testers though. ;)
 
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Names

Poke said:
I once met a woman who wrote Romance novels that named her characters by grabbing slips of paper with names written on them out of a bowl. Interestingly enough she also used this technique to plant plot twists by placing all the characters names into one bowl and some scandalous acts like "murders" or "has sex with" into another, then she'd get combinations like "Poke murders Zen" or "Indie has sex with Will Vincent."

Anyway, I think that's one way to name a character, but I prefer to give my characters names that mean something, at least to me. For instance, most of my protagonists have four letter names like "Jack" or "Mike" or "Pete" because I have a four letter name - Nick. I've also named a protag after a nickname I had in high school - "Woody." I name a lot of characters after family members. I'll switch a name up a bit if the character is solely based on someone - I had two managers at a movie theater I worked for - Todd Hecht and Stewart Bigham - I named a character based on them Todd Bigham.

How do you name your characters?

Poke
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I go to great pains to name my characters. A lot of the names I simply make up. I will look in the dictionary, find a word, then put a different first letter on the word and try it out. For instance, the main character in a script I'm writing right now is named, "Glip." I got it from the word, "blip." For some reason (at least for me), this helps me know that character even more than simply using a common name.

Having said that...

I will sometimes use a common name for a common, minor character. I think doing this keeps things less confusing for a reader and an audience.

For antagonists, I will either use a name that means something specific OR make up a name that SOUNDS more threatening than a name we are familiar with...

filmy
 
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RE: Was than an example?

Zensteve said:
Was than an example? :scared:
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Not sure what you're asking? Or are you joking?

The name Glip is the name of my protagonist in a script I'm writing right now. The antagonist in this same script doesn't have a name... I probably won't name him either.

What I meant by naming an antagonist was doing the same thing as naming my protagonist if of course a regular or aready known name doesn't work for me...

For instance, in an old werewolf script of mine: WOLFERS --The protagonist's name is Jack Lighter. I named him that because back in the day, hunters would use Jack Lights to hunt wolves at night hence, the name.

In that same script, I wanted a good antagonist's name... Believe it or not, I took the word: dork --and simply replaced the first letter until I found a name I liked i.e., TORK. Which, is what I ended up using...

So no... I wasn't giving you an example in my previous post...

filmy
 
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i like to give my characters interesting, unusual names. Just names that sound cool to me, alliteration comes into it sometimes. Plus a lot of the time, with surnames I like to give my characters the surname of a character from a film I like, like Marlowe.

But then again, sometimes I don't follow these rules at all haha. A few characters i've had though are Kevin LaMarr (Kevin for 4 reasons, it's my middle name, it was my grandfathers name, Kevin Smith, and the character Kevin is paired with another character named Andy which when you put together is Andrew Kevin Walker, one of my favourite writers) and there's Andrew Marlowe and also a name I like is Maynard (which you'll understand if you are a fan of Tool and/or A Perect Circle)

but yeah, i realise this probably isn't all that interesting to anyone haha
 
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