Fic Talk > General Discussion
Question of the day thread number 2!
RokofAges75:
I do the baby name thing too! I may even have an account on babynames.com with a whole bunch of names saved on a favorites list LOL. I also love behindthename. com because it gives more background info on where a name came from and its popularity over the years. Actually, one of my favorite sites to go to when I can't think of a name, usually for minor characters, is the Social Security site. They have great lists of popular names from each decade, each individual year, even each year by state. Great for historical fiction! http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/index.html
I tend to only use the baby name sites if I'm stuck and need ideas for names, or if I have it narrowed down to a few choices and can't decide - then I'll look up the meaning and see if there's one that fits better than others. (And yes, I will fully admit to being one of those people who spends way too much time coming up with character names!) I do like the favorites list on babynames.com because it's just a big list of names that I like, which is usually how I name my main characters. I think pretty much any name I've ever considered naming a future child has gone to a character at one point or another. One of my newer favorite girl's names is Analiese, which was Anne Frank's full name (spelled Annaliese). It's a German name, so it worked well for the Amish girl in Guilty Roads.
I prefer classic names, nothing too weird or too trendy (although classic names are the trend nowadays!), although I try not to use names that are overused either in real life or fanfic. I'll probably never name a character Alyssa, Ashley, Stephanie, or anything like that - no offense to people with those names. I try to choose names that fit the character. For example, with Cary in Curtain Call, I knew she was going to have this whole 40s/50s vintage vibe to her, so I definitely wanted her to have a classic name. Her name is Carolyn, which was a popular name in those decades, and she's also named after her mother (Carol), who was an important part of her back story. I like nicknames, and I like them to be derived from the full name and spelled as closely as possible, so I went with Cary instead of Carrie or Cari because Carolyn only has one R and a Y instead of an I or E. Also, it made me think of Cary Grant, which, even though he was a guy, worked with the whole retro thing.
Sometimes I pick names that I don't personally like, but that fit the character. Claire in Broken was one of those. I didn't like the name Claire at the time (it's grown on me since, after writing it so many times over the years!), but that was why it worked for her - I wanted her to have a name that was plain and simple and not overly "pretty"-sounding, like Isabella or Madelyn or something, because that's the type of girl I wanted her to be.
I've used myself as a character in a fanfic once before, back in my teenybopper early days, and since then I've modeled characters after myself (usually in collabs, it seems), but I'm not into blatant self-inserts. I think creating an original character is way more fun than writing a barely-disguised version of myself with a slightly different name. I wouldn't make a very good female lead anyway!
FrickingKaos:
Hmmm names I've used.
Michelle, Alexis, Tracy (duh), April, Jessie, Brandy, Amanda, Katie, Julie, Julia, Renee, Amber, Lisa, Audrey, Nancy, Celine and Linda for girls. For Nick's son I used Bryan and Alexander, Bryan for Brian because it would cause confusion, and Alexander for AJ, the two important people in Nick's life during the series.
I like to pick whatever names I like but I also browse that baby name book. It has 10,000 names in it lol
myconfession:
I'm not sure I agree with the whole spelling thing. I mean, some people have funky spelled names. Not everybody is named Mary or Sally or Carrie. Look at me. My name is Karah-Leigh.
And I used my name, without the hyphen in my very first story I ever wrote. She was totally Mary Sue and everything I wished I was, but at the time I didn't know any better. I also used Karah in "Six Degrees" but that was only as a joke and something my co-writer wanted to do (she was in italso).
I've used different names in stories... Harley, Tara, Karsyn, Emmileigh, Melinda/Mindy, Charlie (Charlotte), Julie, Elizabeth, Shelby, Macie, Georgia, Savannah.... that's the only ones I can think of.
I look at baby name sites sometimes, but sometimes the name usually plays part in the story. Like for instance, the character Georgia is from Florida... and that plays into the story.
Carter-Orange:
I've used friends names, Welsh names like Seren and Carys (which might have sounded weird to some, but not to me, lol). I've also used my own name in the past when I first discovered fanfic as everyone on the site I went on did the same thing.
In my historical one, I did look at names which would've been used in that time.
Pengi:
Karah - I didn't know you used Charlie (Charlotte) too. Which story was she in?
I think using unusual spelling can be used in a good way and then theres a line where it goes over the top. If it's hard for the reader to figure out what the name is because of the crazy ass way its being spelled I think it's too much. I feel like Saphyr or whatever it was would be hard to figure out. Plus it just looks kinda ugly. lol Sapphire isn't much better as a name but thats a whole other discussion and a matter of taste/opinion of the reader/author. But going cuckoo trying to make a name stand out by altering the spelling - without having a reason IN the story for the crazy name - just makes it harder for the reader to figure out how to pronounce your character's name.
Like those Francine Pascal books in the Fearless series. The character's name was spelled Gaia and they pronounced it Guy-uh and she had to make the character tell someone that at least 40 times a chapter, I can only assume so that everyone knew how to pronounce it.
However, I've got a story I'm working on where there is a character named Female, but she pronounces it Fe-mah-lee and there's a reason/story behind it within the story and she actually goes by "Miley" because she got so sick of explaining the story to people.
I really think it's jst a matter of having a purpose, thinking it through, and not randomly throwing crazy spellings and names in just to seek attention or "uniqueness" to the character through their messed up names. If there's a reason for it, then yeah why not? There's truly people with crazy names all over the world, and it can add character depth and all that fun stuff.
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