When I start a story, the first speed bump I hit is naming my character. All of them sound lame and generic: Mary Wilson, Tom Johnson, Susan Williamson--everyone is a "son" when I'm in the midst of writing. I've named them, but they are boring.
So, I want more interesting names, the kind of names that will hook into my readers' heads and make them remember who my characters are.
I have plenty of sources for names. The phone book, of course, is a ready list of real names. Since I teach high school, I have class lists that go back for years. Some of the names are funny, like "Season Dees," or "Dusty Rhodes" (and his brother, Rocky). Some are cool sounding, like "Cheyenne Wells," or "Beau Trey."
One of my favorite place to find names is in the cemetery. I have to walk, of course, so I get the extra rush of blood to my head as I stroll among the stones, but I also get the moody, atmospheric feeling that is a part of the cemetery as I read about the "gone but not forgotten" and "father, husband and friend." I start to picture lives, and that's what I need to attach to a name.
My most reliable source for names, though, and the one I recommend to other writers, is a good baby name book. A baby name book will not only give me a gazillion choices, but will also tell me famous people in the past with that name, where the name came from, what the name means, how popular the name has been, etc.
My readers may not know all the information I gather, but I will, and that will make me write about that character even more convincingly.
After all, by characters are my babies.
When I'm not blogging here, I blog extensively at my own site on teaching, writing and how my teaching and writing are going at http://jimvanpelt.livejournal.com. You can see a table of contents of the writing related posts at http://jimvanpelt.livejournal.com/87625.html
Monday, April 12, 2010
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I went to school with a Snow White and a Miles Davis. Names are great for remembering people by.
ReplyDeleteAs for naming everyone "-son", you could name their parents (in the case of Wilson) Wil, or (Johnson) John. That would be fun. And quirky.
when I've done some writing, I like to really spazz out the names. Maybe it's just because I have a thing for really odd names (let's face it, my own first name is pretty and somewhat uncommon) so I'm slightly biased. But I like to piece names together from www.behindthename.com because I can look at names from all over the world and sometimes I even mix and mash some of the syllables to create totally new ones though they may sound like nonsense. To me, it just gives my characters if they seem cliche at least a little something to stand out and make their point about where they stand. :]
ReplyDeleteAdding -son to a name was actually an old Nordic tradition. So my middle name "punderson" means that somewhere back I had a relative named "punder" ;)
ReplyDeleteI have never been able to make up good character names. I think my last one was Jeffery williams. Thanks for he pointers!