How do you invent names?

I work for a big company with offices all over the world. I open our intranet and pick the name of the first person I see that I feel will fit the character
 
I have named an alien mermaid after the random string of letters one of those "type this to confirm you're not a bot" programs threw at me when I tried to leave a comment on an SF writer's blog.
 
Ah, the perils of inventing names... It is a fact that any random collection of syllables has a fair chance of having a meaning (perhaps an unfortunate one) in some language or other. An example: One of my RPG characters, a hard-as-nails female fighter and part-time Valkyrie, was named Shiralee quite a few years ago. Several years after the creation of said character, I heard of an Australian film called "The Shiralee". The item mentioned was a small boy whom circumstances forced someone to adopt, and the word is an Aboriginal one meaning something like "useless burden". :sneaky:

OTOH, sometimes a name forces itself on you. Another RPG character, this time a vampire (Ravnos as it happens) in the White Wolf mediaeval setting. Said character is from Eastern Europe, and after a few minutes a name surfaced I just had to use. Name? Lazarus Kalashnikov. :D
 
I pick a country of origin, go to Google maps and zoom in on it at random. Find a place name and use it as a surname, then find a list of common first names in that language.

The difficulty comes when the characters don't come from places with maps... The aliens in my WIP can't vocalise our speech, so they translate the meaning of their names, so to be honest I named some of them after bad translations of non descriptive martial arts katas using smaller vocabulary.
 
I just pick real names, surnames from real life or other media. Change a few letters.
 
My other half decides on a selection of consonants and then strings vowels between them. Me, I sometimes will go from an unusual name, or a slightly different version of a more traditional one (e.g. Vadim and Ithon). For my non-Humans I've often gone for some link to another language or mythology. E.g. Biann and Saidhe are mutations of the traditional words behind Banshee. And the Ardeshir come from the original Persian names for certain rulers. The back-traced history might be impossible for someone to guess with some, and others would take a bit of a google-fu, but I like having the meaning there for me if no one else!
 
DCBastien said:
Saidhe
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Which comes from the Irish simply meaning "mound". It's very late indeed that the Tuatha De Danann (The Fair Folk, because mostly they were fair) became the Sidhe (pronounced shee). Ban is just Irish for woman, i.e. ban garda = police woman. Even Tuatha De Danann is invention maybe 8th to 10thC. as Danu is Central Europe Celts, not Irish, (Danube). They were Tuath Dé originally.
It's useful knowing entomology and word drift ... Irish Mac (son of )becomes Welsh Map (Q and P Celtic, mind you Ps and Qs?). then the Welsh drop the m to have "ap" as son.
Old english words survive too.

So you can get names that suit your aliens or fantasy world once you have a few roots to draw on.
 
This is the hardest part of writing for me. I get so picky over the names. Even though I write fantasy, I don't really like unpronounceable or really long names, so I use real life ones which means I spend hours searching the net. I normally base fantasy off real life time periods so I use names from there. Sometimes I change letters.
 
Average Writer said:
This is the hardest part of writing for me. I get so picky over the names.
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Yeah, It can really get you down if you can't think of a name. I've even found the actual writing slowing down because I was obsessing over a character's name in the past. Now if it doesn't come to me or I haven't had time to look one up I stick a place holder in. Usually Foster, there are lots of Fosters in my WIPs that need to be sorted out at some point
 
J D Foster said:
Now if it doesn't come to me or I haven't had time to look one up I stick a place holder in. Usually Foster, there are lots of Fosters in my WIPs that need to be sorted out at some point
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I use ???? For any and everything I don't have the answer to yet. So my my WiP's look very much like:

???? Caught the scent on the breeze, if he could smell them then so could ???? (or could he because he lost his nose in the first chapter? FIGURE THIS OUT PLEASE!!!!!) Quickening the pace ???? Ventured deeper into the jungle.


I literally could take that out from any place in my WiP; bold, brackets and semi-polite note included.
 
LittleStar said:
???? Caught the scent on the breeze, if he could smell them then so could ???? (or could he because he lost his nose in the first chapter? FIGURE THIS OUT PLEASE!!!!!) Quickening the pace ???? Ventured deeper into the jungle.
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I love this! I have highlights for potential plot holes.In one wip my lead has a gun one moment then next she doesn't, then it's back again.... oh my I have so much work to do on that story :)

It makes me feel so reassured that other people have these trials too :)
 
If you need unusual names (other than David, Jerry, Bill, etc.) you can look into ancient languages and pull from there. You get some built-in consistency without having to take the Tolkien route and invent an entire language. :lol:
 
EJ Heijnis said:
If you need unusual names (other than David, Jerry, Bill, etc.) you can look into ancient languages and pull from there. You get some built-in consistency without having to take the Tolkien route and invent an entire language. :lol:
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Yup I do that for my alien race, they take their names from ancient Celtic names. I always think there's a risk when you make up your own names that you'll accidentally copy someone's idea. Or like like ou say you end up having to invent the whole thing to an extreme level of detail.
 
J D Foster said:
I always think there's a risk when you make up your own names that you'll accidentally copy someone's idea.
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Happened to me. I invented a character whose name I really liked, and got to know him under that name until it was impossible to see him in my with any other name -- until I put it on here for critique. Turned out it was the name of a dog in a popular meme. :rolleyes:
 
Oh, I've only come to grief once, but quite spectacularly. In my first book I wanted a name for pirates that enter good guy space across the rim of space with a quarantine zone. After much deliberation, and bearing in mind that I am of the world but not part of it, I came up with the name Rim Runners. I kid you not. It was an innocent mistake; I'd never heard the expression before. And by the way, yuck. Thankfully, a beta clued me in before I put it out to the public. Ah, the perils of writing. :(
 
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