A character name is important. It’s his main identifier. The bigger the role a character has in a story, the more important his or her name is. But even when characters are secondary, just passerby with minor roles, their names are still important. Any slip ups, and a reader can quickly notice the sloppy work, and that disrupts the flow of the story. It happened to me as a reader. I was reading a novel, and came across a name that was clearly out of place for a character that had a negligible role. The name popped once in the whole novel, but was obviously rushed as it was deemed not important, and messed up a paragraph, and months after I finished the read, I still remember that! Or maybe I’m just too picky.
So how do I pick character names?
I use several criteria when I make my choices and give it much thought before settling on the final version. I even talk to my characters calling them over and over again to make sure their names fit naturally.
First, I make sure the name fits the era or environment I’m writing in and blends with the other names in a story. You don’t want something that stands out as odd, unless it is intentional.
Second, I think of the physical appearance of the characters along with their personality (which should be in harmony). What are they like? How do they act? Are they impulsive? Passive? Smart? Ignorant? As such, I use a name that would fit both the physical and mental profile of my characters. For example, one of my creatures is a devious ugly looking insect with fangs and lives in a large colony. I came up with the name voölgroös for it. Voölgroös sounds ugly, vulgar and aggressive. Also the use of s at the end makes it seem like it’s plural. Voölgroös are always together like a horde, moving as one large mass.
Third, I play with languages. Being literate in different languages makes it easier for me to mix sounds and meanings, mashing several languages to reach something indicative of my character. A rather obvious example is one of my characters in my novel named Hariseer. Hariseer is a patrol officer keeping watch at the end of the world. Haris comes from the Arabic language and means guard. Seer, in English obviously, means clairvoyant. Hariseer is a rather naïve individual. He fails to notice the suffering around him, he doesn’t see the way tyrants dominate his world, so I thought of using seer in his name sarcastically. Hence the name Hariseer. He’s a guard, but sees nothing.
Last and most important thing I do, is test the sound of a name. Does it have a nice ring to it? The use of certain vowels or consonants can help accentuate certain traits and transform a name, making it sound smooth and dreamy, or violent and aggressive. Sometimes the sound of a name is the only factor I rely on in choosing it. It can, at times when the all above criteria are lined up perfectly, cause me to disregard it entirely because it just doesn’t sound good.
This, in short, is my process for name creation. Sometimes it would take days before settling on a name, but always make it fun, and never compromise or take shortcuts. If you’re not sure of a name, don’t use it, keep thinking until you come up with something you are totally convinced with.