How do you name your characters?

[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

 

[LouisaLives]

I name my characters just to what ever feels right. I have a list of names I usually skim through and names stand out for different characters. Sometimes though I go on babynames.com and type in a meaning to find an ideal name for the character.

 

[Loud Orange Cat]

Ask family members if you can use their name in a movie. Most likely, they'll shout "Yes!"

*AFTER* they've agreed, you can ask them for money, too...

 

[NicklausLouis]

Adam Sandler's character name from any of his films?

Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore!

Here's a random name generator that is pretty simple, but effective.

Poke

 

[FGD]

There's one more reason why I put a lot of thought into my character names - and I'm not as paranoid as I'm about to sound. The more I can back up my screenplay, the more I can prove I wrote it. Why did this character use this word? Why is this their name? Why this location? I own every piece of the story in my head so nobody can one-up me. Again, I'm not really that nervous about having my stuff "stolen", but it's something I've been aware of from the beginning.

 

[Nique Zoolio]

ahoy there FGD!!welcome to indie talk!!

 

[NicklausLouis]

There's one more reason why I put a lot of thought into my character names - and I'm not as paranoid as I'm about to sound. The more I can back up my screenplay, the more I can prove I wrote it. Why did this character use this word? Why is this their name? Why this location? I own every piece of the story in my head so nobody can one-up me. Again, I'm not really that nervous about having my stuff "stolen", but it's something I've been aware of from the beginning.

Dn't be ashamed of it. I think the more thought you put into the smallest detail, the better your script will be - because you'll be so close to it.

Poke

 

[Nique Zoolio]

well said