I once heard of a mother who named her daughter v a g n a vagina think about all the trouble that poor girl faced in school so names are important in real life and they are important in fiction as well in the movie Meet the fuers Ben Stiller is named Gaylord fuer wait wait wait wait wait so you see your name is gay fuler the writers must have had a good time coming up with that one starting with more obvious ones and then toward the end of this video I'll get to more unusual and surprising
ones one pick a one-word name musicians have known for a long time that a single name could be more memorable than a full name Adele Drake Usher pink and writers use this technique too here are some of my favorites think about 11 from stranger things or Four in Divergent in Clockwork Orange there's a character named dim not only is it a single word it also describes him admirably Spock from Star Trek supposedly had a last name but the audience never learned it because he said it was too difficult for humans to pronounce think about how
weird it would sound like Spock Smith or something like no no he's just Spock to go wild Thomas Pinchin is the captain of crazy names just look at the ones in inherent Vice Lieutenant detective Christian F Bigfoot bjornson Puck Beaverton sorell Don sportello Japonica Fenway I mean that is some wild stuff in there he really used up all his creativity energy coming up with names in that book and David Foster Wallace is no slou when it comes to generating creative names either pal incandenza I love the combination of a very short simple first name with
this comp Le Lex creative second name and we should also include Don dilo's best contribution for this category Bucky wonderl three make the name match let's take a look at the way JK ring names characters and how those names reflect the personality of their owner Draco Malfoy it is such a nefarious evil sounding name Draco is the Latin word for Dragon and Mal meaning bad or malens luna Lov good such a sweetheart and alliterative to boot with those lovely L's but Luna meaning lunar or Moon also let you know she's a little bit wacky Voldemort
yeah pretty much the Incarnation of evil sounding Mort meaning death and vold sounding like mold and Charles Dickens leads the league in this type of word play MD Stone he's an abusive stepfather and with a name like that there's zero chance he could be a hero striver with a name like that could you imagine he's anything other than a hard worker slime you get two guesses whether this is a villain but you're only going to need one four repeat names one of the best names of all time is major major major major and Catch 22
buys Joseph Herer that's right four majors in a row it is an ongoing gag and it makes me laugh every single time I read it and who could forget Humbert Humbert and nabokov's Lolita the repetition of his name makes him laughable an object of mockery for the reader there's also Jar Jar Binks Richie Rich rentin tin Woody Woodpecker and there's plenty of examples in real life too think about Honey Boo Boo which is such a better name than honey boo flavor flave would be another off-the-wall example or good old Marky Mark five consider using your
name why not give a character in your book your full name or just your middle name or maybe a name that has the same initials as you it offers this lovely meta fictional Dimension or are you just saying that the character has something in common with you are you subverting the Divide between fiction and non-fiction or are you just messing with the reader for instance in Jonathan saffron's faer novel everything is illuminated the main character is named Jonathan saffran foer and in Michelle welbeck's novel platform he kills off a character called Michelle Welbeck six make
an anagram pick something that your character represents like narcissistic or Travel King then ask AI to make a bunch of anagrams based on that phrase or word for instance narcissistic comes out to casassus triny when you get rich and famous and people ask you about the character you'll have this very clever explanation in your back pocket that you can Trot out for people in the know seven Add a prefix or a suffix simply adding a prefix to one of your character's names is a great way to spice up an otherwise boring name let's use my
name as an example lieutenant John Fox Sir John John Fox Doctor John Fox coach John Fox I actually am a soccer coach officer John Fox Reverend John Fox or do the opposite and choose a suffix John Matthew Fox II yes John Fox Jr John Fox PhD eight use alliteration I put an exclamation point there because it is a command because you need an imperative to get your creative juices flowing alliteration is so obvious and not a lot of people consider it when creating good names Wonder Woman Green Goblin willly Wonka and you get bonus points
if you can come up with three alliterative words I only know one and it's from the never- Ending Story Bastion Balthazar bucks BBB nine give a long name why stop at one name or two you underachiever go for four go for five and if you can add on a prefix or a suffix hey that's just bonus points do you remember Dumbledore's full name Albus pival wolck Brian Dumbledore out of those five Brian really doesn't fit does it and rayu knows the blue flowers there is a character named Wen olind anaste crepine anarat arini mederic and
whose initials spell out that first name clever huh Charles Williams who was a writer along with CS Lewis and Tolkien gave an impressive character name in his book War in heaven Aubrey Duncan peragine Mary deist the estrange and that's not even counting the title which was Duke of the north writings maress of Craig Mullan pleasing count of the Holy Roman Empire Knight of the cap and sword and several other ridiculous fantasies but for names this long I I would recommend using them only once and then shortening it to a nickname 10 reverse the first and
last name I was just reading Doug warhol's Thin Blue Smoke and there's a character named Ferguson this little girl asks him is that your last name or your first name his first oddly enough his full name is Ferguson Glenn normally you would think it'd be Glenn Ferguson it's just this great reversal which makes his name very memorable so once you come up with a good name consider reversing the names 11 hyphenate the name a hyphenated name can tell you a lot about a character it can tell you that they're married and wanted to make a
compromise between keeping their old last name and adopting the husband's new name or a hyphenated name can tell you that this person is of a certain class an economic level plus a hyphenated name looks very different on the page than other names so it makes it easier for the reader to distinguish that character from other characters there's also this tricky thing you can do where a hyphenated name is symbolic of a divided personality that's a little extra tidbit for you Advanced writers 12 avoid proper names and Jose SAR mago's blindness he doesn't give anyone proper
names he just calls them by their profession the doctor the doctor Do's wife woman with dark glasses man with black eye patch it gives the whole novel a sense of a fable and also makes them standin for the rest of humanity plus those are pretty cool character names and here are a couple more examples of non-n names from television and elsewhere the doctor from Doctor Who the cigarette smoking man from xfiles the time traveler from The Time Machine by HG Wells particularly in the cigarette man and the xfiles not giving him a name creates this
Aura of mystery around him like you don't even know this man's name enjoy naming your characters and don't forget to subscribe and like
