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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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Ok, so I have a pretty good start to building a database of names to use with the name generator.. (which I should have working tomorrow)

Male Names: 3,690
Female Names: 5,117
Surnames: 16,896

According to the permutation calculation I tried, allowing for generation of a middle name and a hyphenated last name, there is apparently enough data to generate roughly 190,489,275,406,316,489,991,490,950,915,500,000 unique names. That should be good for a while I'd guess. ;)
 
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For whatever bizarre reason I was unable to sleep tonight (yet again.. this is getting old!)

So, still have a couple bits to do with the code, so it will remember your choices, but it's working at any rate, just resets all but the quantity upon each generation.

Have fun: http://www.intensitymedia.org/namegen

:lol: This is the funniest one I've seen yet: DECEMBER HUMMER

Oh, not that you probably need/want to.. but you can do up to 999 with each click, I just limited it to that so the number entry field wouldn't be too huge. It really is impressive how quick they pop up though, considering all the loops it goes through in the code...
 
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i have started to use real life names. one of my characters is a waster of a shelf-stacker called Paul, one of my friends is a shelf-stacking waster called Paul (he himself admits this). one of the female characters is named after my ex (Fran), one of them is named after this girl i really like (Becki). Its concerning because I feel that I am unable to dissect my characters from their name-sharers, and thus, I do struggle to create them as seperate, original entities. I'll probably change the Becki one, I mean her character is highly likely to die in this - hardly a way to 'i like you' to anyone.
 
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I have an affinity for slightly off-the-wall names, but I try to pick something that suits a character's personality. Examples:

Jack Boyd (quick, clipped, to-the-point DJ)
Dean Dockerty ("Dean" lending itself a tone of egomania)
Leo Straub (literary + blue collar)
Rachel Holt (high class, unattainable)
Dierdre Walker (gothic first name + casual surname = a girl who wants to break from the pack)

If possible, I hold off with naming a character until after I've cast the role, so I can base the character's name on the physical appearance of the actor. One problem I tend to run into in those situations is a tendency to name a character too closely to the actor's real name (i.e. Kate became "Karen," Clare became "Chloe," etc.)...

And then there are times a name just "sounds right" when it comes to me... Those go into the Character Name File or somesuch place for later review.
 
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Will Vincent said:
For whatever bizarre reason I was unable to sleep tonight (yet again.. this is getting old!)

So, still have a couple bits to do with the code, so it will remember your choices, but it's working at any rate, just resets all but the quantity upon each generation.

Have fun: http://www.intensitymedia.org/namegen

:lol: This is the funniest one I've seen yet: DECEMBER HUMMER

Oh, not that you probably need/want to.. but you can do up to 999 with each click, I just limited it to that so the number entry field wouldn't be too huge. It really is impressive how quick they pop up though, considering all the loops it goes through in the code...
Click to expand...


Wow, nice work on the name generator.

My inspiration for character names comes from where ever I can find it. For one of my films I was inspired by Lucy Van Pelt & and Charlie Brown. I also took the characteristics of both and incorporated them into the movie. I wanted to mess around with colors in the movie so Charlie Brown became Charlie Green who is married to Kelly Green (the Irish color) and Lucy Van Pelt became Luci Diamonds. We used the blue color in Lucy Van Pelt's dress to contrast Kelly's Green.

I guess the name generator would be easier to use. :lol:

Rick
 
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For me it really depends on the character and the piece im writing....for example, if the character is very strong, in a treacherous plot i would choose a stronger name that either has some sort of irony or meaning to it, such as something like Wraith( pronounced ray-ihth)....if it is a comic releif character, the simpler the name, the better. if Wraith is our protagonist then i would have his foil named something like Anna....it all depends on the mood of the plotline

:)-Caity
 
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I think I pick the names for my characters pretty randomly, though I do think its important that they kind of fit with who they are (though of course anyone with any name can be any type of person). I'm pretty terrible with picking names though. For instance 3 out of 4 characters from my first script had names that started with a J- Joe, Jimmy, and Julie. :P
 
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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
Click to expand...
I pick names that

1) Mean something in another language

or

2) I just flat-out like
 
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i name all my characters after myself, sure.. it gets confusing, but isnt it just a lovely tribute. nah, i just pick names i really like, or that suit the character. in Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk named all of the guys Tyler/Jack pretends to be at those self help groups after characters DeNiro has played.
 
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I don't believe I saw my favourite character-naming website anywhere in the previous posts: behindthename.com. I used to use friends' names, but I found it difficult to write any really tawdry scenes with my friends in mind. Now I like anything original and easy to remember.
 
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Different schools of thought

The totally random name - which makes no real sense. Some one named that person at birth. There was at least some thought into it. Unusual names often come from that, being named after a relative or someone famous. No name is truly random.

The perfect name - A woman named Prudence being a prude for instance. Overdone, but sometimes if someone is stuck with a name, it may actually mold their personality or cause them to rebel against it. I know a young woman named Ethel (which is honestly an old woman's name)... but she acts nothing like an Ethel.

The ironic name - Bill Armstrong (but he's a weakling for example). The ironic name is often meant to point out flaws in the character or areas or their personality that are their failing point.

For myself, I try to think of a realistic name that is NOT overly symbolic. A good example might be like comparing James Brass (CSI) to a character of my own Jimmy Silvers. Brass on CSI is a rigid detective and the dark metal reference reminds us of his Bronze badge. The character of Jimmy Silvers was his high school's golden boy but he has returned home after being 'tarnished' in a business scandal.

I DIDN'T put HUGE AMOUNTS of time into the name and could always change it, after all I want people to remember the character not any kind of nifty gimmick with their name. But, not everyone should be a Bill Smith or Tyrone Jones.

JC
 
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As screenwriters we agonize over names but does anybody remember the name of Tea Leoni's character from Spanglish? Adam Sandler's character name from any of his films? Nope, it's just "that character Tea played". Only Tolkien fiends can name more than 3 characters from the Lord of the Rings movies.

The only character names that seem to stick are historical names, the Star Wars pantheon and the Muppets.. the latter two because we had the action figures as kids. (But quick, what is the name of the character played by Samuel Jackson in Episode 2? You don't remember because you're too old to collect action figures!!) The only other one I can remember is Decker from Blade Runner. I love nearly every film by Michael Mann but don't remember any of the character names (except for Muhammad Ali of course).

I know one writer that names his lead characters Z, J, PJ, KC, etc.. he doesn't have Final Draft and so he doesn't want to constantly write a long character name over dialog.
 
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I like to find historical similarities... I love history, and finding a name of a character where the events suit thier nature is not only fun, but also educational.
In the word of Letterman: Info'taining
I usually slap temporary names on them for drafts.
In a short script I recently wrote, I named the characters Nora and Torvald (Ibsen's doll house). The short has to do with a woman wanting to try cocaine for once, whereas the play has Nora seeking independance. The similarity is the fact that both women are trying to advance an aspect of themselves. OK, ok... crack isn't an advancement, but it's comedy- there arn't rules!!
Just be creative, have fun naming them, and if you come up with names like "Jo-jo Baloney" just remember:
Pussy Galore.
It worked for Bond, why not you?

-Logan-
 
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I either have the name of a character firmly in place before I even begin writing a script - For some reason, I knew I needed to name a female lead "Amanda" at all costs - or I research a name for a character that makes sense for that character's traits....I gave the last name "Vacary" to the bad guy of one script because that's the English-ized spelling of the Latin root word for "void," this bad guy being particularly mentally torpid on so many levels.

When I have no idea what to name a character, I search the phone book for names that peak my curiosity or look through a dictionary for words that relate to my characters on some level.

In the end, I think most people don't care what you name a character...but we are our characters' parents, so it's different for us, you know.

pronnes
 
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