By Any Other Name: How My Characters Name Themselves

I’m sure many, if not all, fiction writers would agree that the characters of a story are the writers’ bosses rather than the other way around. It was William Faulkner who said that once a character begins to move, a writer can only follow along and write down what that character says and does. That is exactly how my characters come to life. They wake me up at two in the morning to tell me that they had a fight with their significant others or keep me awake at night because they didn’t quite agree with how I wrote their stories. And writing a story is incredibly difficult if the character does not agree with his or her name.

Sometimes, names will remind you of a person or an event. For example, the name Harry will always remind me of Harry Potter or Edward will always be Edward Cullen to me. You may want to consider that as well, if you’re sensitive about names. I used to reject name after name after name because they remind me of people who don’t embody my character, or I just plain don’t like them. I still do actually.

Think of it as naming your baby. Some parents like to give their children unique names. And while parents will have to consider giving their kids names that are staid and solid, and not too unique as to give the children a hard time explaining their names, you, as an author, have less to worry about. You can give your character an incredibly unique name, especially if you are writing fantasy or science fiction. Naming your kid Daenacinescina may be out of the question for you, but a high priestess in a distant planet can be named Daenacinescina.

It is important that your character has a name that he or she likes, and that you can compromise on. A wrong scene isn’t the only reason why a story won’t move forward. A wrong character name can also hinder a writer. It took me a whole year to write one book because of one name. My lead female character was named “Daphne” and the lead male character refused to go out with her. I was stuck at four chapters, with the words refusing to flow, until, in frustration, I grabbed a baby names book and browsed through it until I see a name that screamed at me from the pages. I rearranged the names of the characters, deleted the old name and used the new one, and I finished the book in its entirety in three days.

Your name can be from someone you like, or you can let your character choose his or her own name. Do what I did and invested in a good baby name book. I use 100,000+ Baby Names by Bruce Lansky, which is really interesting. It has name trivia and lists of names from mythology, TV, movies, sports, etc. It also lists down celebrity kids’ names apart from the lists of names and their meanings. When I’m stuck, I just pick the book, open to one page and scan until I find the right name.

These stories are not mine. They are my characters’, just as their names are up to my characters to choose. I just follow my feelings until, in the end, all of us are happy. It paves the way for a story going smoothly.