How do you invent names?

[Maieius]

Thinking's hard today. I'm currently brainstorming to think of a name for a creature and in this particular instance, I'm finding it a little more difficult than I usually do. Since none of the names I've come up with seem to fit, I'm wondering if anybody else has another method that might be worth trying.

Often, I find different words from all sorts of different languages, mix and blend them together and find a word that's suitable. Other times, a word just pops into my head and, after googling to make sure it's not a real word, it's usually the one I go straight back to because it's just waving it's hand and shouting "Yoo hoo! Look at me!" whenever I consider anything else. This happens more often than not.

But nope. The word generator in my brain's closed for maintenance, so nothing's popping into my head. I've been waiting for longer than usual and was curious as to how others find ways to invent names. Might give me an insight.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I use my 'subconscious' *. Unfortunately it does not tell me how it works things out , it just gives me the answer. However nine times out of ten it seems to get it 'right'.

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* If there is such a thing, all this Freudian stuff is all a bit old hat now, or so I've been told. So not sure what I'm accessing. I think I prefer Jung anyway...

 

[Maieius]

I use my 'subconscious' *. Unfortunately it does not tell me how it works things out , it just gives me the answer. However nine times out of ten it seems to get it 'right'.

Sadly, for me, the only thing my subconscious is telling me is that the name for this creature begins with the letter 'C'. I know it's the holidays but this is taking the mickey.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

A) I just do it.
B) There are sites that generate various flavours of names. I always edit the results.
C) Variant pronunciation or spellings of existing names.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Like VB, I just let my subconscious pop something into my head, and often find, if I look up a name meaning or something, that it was precisely right. If your name-popping thing isn't working, take a shower. Take a walk. Take a nap. Forget all about it and start thinking about something else entirely, and something will come along.

 

[Joe Vanderheiden]

I go to sites that have the meanings for names and try to pick a meaning that matches close to the type of character.

 

[C.E. Gee]

But nope. The word generator in my brain's closed for maintenance, so nothing's popping into my head. I've been waiting for longer than usual and was curious as to how others find ways to invent names. Might give me an insight.

I usually don't invent names; I use the names of friends and relatives.

Whenever a story of mine gets published, it makes said friends or relatives happy I used their name. Also, they tell their friends and such, which is great advertising and makes me happy.

For aliens, I make up names, but that only happens in a few of my stories. One of my favorites if I remember correctly was "Kraugg." Not sure I got the spelling right. That was used for a creature living on Europa in my story "Repulsive Progression."

NAMASTE

C.E. Gee aka Chuck

 

[Maieius]

I usually don't invent names; I use the names of friends and relatives.

Whenever a story of mine gets published, it makes said friends or relatives happy I used their name. Also, they tell their friends and such, which is great advertising and makes me happy.

For aliens, I make up names, but that only happens in a few of my stories. One of my favorites if I remember correctly was "Kraugg." Not sure I got the spelling right. That was used for a creature living on Europa in my story "Repulsive Progression."

I've done a huge mixture of modern names and made-up names, but never used a friend or relative's name. I've used one name of a relative for a character's nickname, but it's never cropped up to use the name of someone I know. Although, I did fashion a name from a person who was nasty to me when I was younger. Oddly enough, this character gets bopped off

In this particular instance, it's the name of a type of a creature, for instance, cat or dog, rather than their own name. Although, I think it does need its own name considering it's status.

I think it might be one that I might have to wait for, but I didn't think to use a generator for this one. I've used name meanings quite a lot, a lot of my God's have names fashioned from them. I've even named an important city from letters positioned on countdown, so who knows where this one I need might come from!

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'm sorry I can't offer much in the way of helpful techniques, but total sympathy. Whether my naming dilemma is for a spirit, monster, character, place or title, I can't relax and work optimally until I have it sorted.

I'm with VB and TDZ; usually it's not too much of a problem because a name presents itself before I get to needing one... A name that comes this way is far more evocative, in my experience, than one I've forced.

pH

 

[Maieius]

Like VB, I just let my subconscious pop something into my head, and often find, if I look up a name meaning or something, that it was precisely right.

Although this name didn't pop into my head, the name I used for my main character, a prince to become king, screamed at me when I first saw it. It wasn't until a couple of months later that I discovered that his name means 'strong ruler'! Hopefully, this one'll pop into my head when I get to bed and just hope that I write it down before I go to sleep and forget aha.

 

[Maieius]

I'm sorry I can't offer much in the way of helpful techniques, but total sympathy. Whether my naming dilemma is for a spirit, monster, character, place or title, I can't relax and work optimally until I have it sorted.

I'm with VB and TDZ; usually it's not too much of a problem because a name presents itself before I get to needing one... A name that comes this way is far more evocative, in my experience, than one I've forced.

pH

I agree too, I've spent a while with a name I've forced before and it feels very wrong. It's like putting the sofa in the wrong place in the living room. Your sympathy is very welcome! It's been annoying me for days, this one too, I can't keep writing "the creature" in my notebook!

 

[Gonk the Insane]

I'd suggest that if you're usual methods for choosing a name aren't working then either leave it for a while - inspiration can slap you in the face at the strangest (and most inconvenient) moments - or try a different approach.

Perhaps consider what the creature's name should say about it. Is it a particularly dangerous creature? Does it need a name that sounds harsh or dangerous? Is it something that should sound cuddly or otherwise friendly? A long name, or a short, sharp name? How can you convey a sense of the creature's nature through its name?

 

[oranges]

Do any of you ever use the random word or random name generators on various websites like Rinkworks?

 

[Dan Jones]

I've used the random name generators before when using foreign names, and usually edit them as appropriate.

Whenever I use a bog-standard English name, like Tony, or Margaret, or Dave, I always end up thinking "oh, that's too boring" and end up trying to think of something more exotic. But I'm sure there's nothing wrong with it - does anyone else think this?

 

[Denise Tanaka]

I've used all sorts of wacky methods over the years. Take obscure vocabulary words and scramble them or spell them strangely. Borrow foreign words and spell them like names. (One of my favorites in this category was a gentleman's servant, named Junbi, because he was always prepared. It's a Japanese word.) Another odd thing I did once was to take a word, saber-tooth, and scrambled the letters into Shatboeort but then someone in writer's group pointed out that the nickname "Shat" sounds like the past-tense of sh*t... so I changed the spelling into Zhedboyut.

Right now, I have WIP where the characters will be named for colors. I'm researching obscure words for color, foreign words, and correlations to objects to come up with names in that system.

Or, remember the original Star Trek series? They started with Spock and the producer put forth a rule that all Vulcan men would have 5-letter names starting with S and ending with K, thus Spock's father's name is Sarek. All the women's names have a prefix T-apostrophe like T'Pao and T'Pring.

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

I make them up by thinking about the technology,sociology,cultural anthropology,linguistics/philology,modes of communication,oddities of time,geography,possibilities of misunderstanding,mispronunciation,cultural taphonomy,the vagaries of history
So i come up with e.g.
Mitotic/Intron Splice/Superseded/Yakutia("Call me Missy")
Mohamed Zhongfang De Freitas Smart Moose
or Y'thia
language example:

1) Jermorra: altsproake (“the original/old tongue”) for Iron Wall.

2) Folksamm: a Wayfarer term,basically anderssproake(dialect) :any gathering of people,
but with some stability implied,use degenerated to town/city
Troghirneran: altsproake for Artificial Intelligence unit(literally “fake brain)”
Words ending with “an” have the plural “in”
finking (a mixture of wayfarer Aslan and kyrtsprekke(shortspeak): assessing situations with non-self input
Gibnaladyr: grytskapsprekke(approx.: the language of advanced technology users),a verb meaning to store data .Often shortened to: Gib
Aslan:any agglomerative language,origins of the word are debated,possibly 'Agglischaxon

 

[Saharren]

I have a bit of a similar problem, not so much with names, but with coming up with last names/family names for my human characters. It's not terribly important, more of just something to add flavor, so to speak. I was thinking that I would do some research on the origins of family names, but I figured that popping in here and asking would help as well. So does anyone have any particular way of giving characters last names?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I keep it as simple as I can - for characters I use Earthbound names and Behind the Name random generator if I'm stuck.

For anything else I look at what its and describe it either in English another language or name it after a prominent person in the planet's mythology etc That's how our world has done it although these days we don't always recognise the origin.

In my world for example a town by the sea would be Seatown. The island is Covesea Island because the Cove is where the settlers first arrived. The long river is Lang River. The highest mountain is Mons Mount (short for Monster Mountain) Where the palace is is the Royal Quarter and the school the princes attend is the Royal Academy. But I named the university Queen Alberta after its patron. Their currency is the Brine.

The people who live near a volcano are the fire folk and they live in a country called Scortia. And their main town is Hot Springs. They're the only characters who are named after their element so are things like Fyren, Blayze, Magma etc

Wind folk are from Cyclonica - their currency is the Vent the main town the Zephyr Township.

I probably will have to change the Earth people's Medterra but they also have Verge Crook as they are split into two nations. Their currency is the Clay or the Loam

My fairies object to the term fairy and insist on being Less-Bigs the people they are enemies with are Great-Bigs and the Middlers are caught in the middle. Less-Bigs have elemental based tribes that are things like Spits, Sparks, Speck, Morsels, Puffs, Vents, Grains, Micros, Incogs. The centre of the island is Jointure Land (joins one part to the other) and another is Heatherland because heather grows there. Cairns Still is where they distil the fermented kelp of the sea folk and there are stone circles and burial places.

 

[Piousflea84]

My fantasy settings tend to use recognizable time periods from real-world history, and my sci-fi settings all refer heavily to Earth-ethnic identities and cultures... This makes naming somewhat "easy" in that I can use a lot of names and places from the Googlable real world. I am not a big fan of, nor very good at, making up a bunch of Schwerrzapstonik Riders speaking the Umgorgorian Tongue.

Place Names: A medieval giant-robot combat epic set in the Crusader States will happen in places like Antioch and Jerusalem. A magically-powered slave revolt in the 1850's USA might be in Montgomery, Vicksburg, or Atlanta. 25th-century American star systems might be named New Dayton, Mason, or Willamette... unless they are Native American colonies such as Shenandoah and Tecumseh/Tenskatswa. Haile Mariam is an Ethiopian-ethnic exology (world-ship), Chevalier and Brandenburg are French and German star systems, Zhangfei and Qiaori are Chinese-controlled wormhole termini.

Technology Names: I use a combination of Latin scientific terms, eponyms, and whatever sounds right. Brain-smartphone interfaces are called neurocast interfaces, and using them is called casting (a term that is meant to evoke both spellcasting and podcasting). Interstellar jumps are powered by the Barras-Pannala Space-Time Synchronization Core, generally shortened to Core. Starship power systems require electronuclear cells and nanogel, both of which are manufactured from a type of dark matter known as umbral matter. The study of umbral matter is called tenebrology and people who mine asteroids for umbral matter are called tenebrologists. (Umbra and Tenebra are both Latin words for "shadow") An exology stands for exoatmospheric ecology and refers to a city-size or larger starship.

Life-Form Names: These are named by whatever human culture discovered them. An American colony infested by an extremely resilient grassy weed gave it the rather obvious name Sawgrass. The Crown Ebony is an extremely tall tree with hard black wood. The apex predator on a Persian-themed ocean world is a gargantuan squid-shark called the Najdan (Najm = star, Dandan = sea monster).

Character Names: I tend to use a combination of online "Baby Name" atlases and Wikipedia/Google for historical and mythological figures from a given culture. For example, Apranik was a legendary Persian female warrior, so the Crown Princess Apranik bin Salim is an expert starfighter pilot and space armada commander. This stuff is fun to play with. I usually stay away from "silly science fiction names" for humans - except for people from downtrodden or marginalized star systems. A Peter Lakh is probably from a higher social stratum than a Radiya Jynn. Occasionally I will play around with "symbolic names", like Father Humboldt for a priest who is tortured by his enemies and then rescued by but forced to serve a terrible magical power. (he is "humbled")

 

[Kylara]

I practice daily nonsense speak. So just slamming a bunch of sounds together and seeing what they sound like. Hence why my pedigree show dog now has the nickname grottlibug. And my not all there cat the nickname Wooozlywoo. I have come up with some fantastic names of things via this system. Also some not so great. Also I like playing with sounds with everyday words/names so a main character started off as Lyx, and is now Elyx - all coming from playing around with the word Alex. I think just playing with sounds of things and changing noises is good so x to ss, d to b etc etc.