Character Development: What's in a Name

One of my favorite parts of story construction is character creation and development. Characters are my favorite of a story. If I can feel for them, and get a scope of who they are, and what motivates them the story becomes even more riveting.

I spend a lot of time developing characters for my bigger projects. Sometimes, I'll even go to making full on profiles for them. (Which later are changed if they change due to story events.) This week, I'm going to share with you what I makes for a well-developed character.

The first thing that attracts me to a character is their name. A name often defines their personality. This isn't always the case, but I've found that more often than not I am attracted to easy to pronounce names, that are also unique. That's not to say I haven't been attracted to a Simon or Cameron, or Isabella before. Unique names, however are the ones that stand out to me. There are a lot of ways to go about character naming. Sometimes, I take the scapegoat, and name them after people I know, or other characters I've liked in a recent book. That doesn't make them unique, but if the names fit, the characters wear them with pride, I say.

Another method is a character name generator. There are several of these on the internet. I used to frequent them for my more exotic names, if I needed one. This is particularly useful for foreign names.

My current favorite method was introduced to me by a fellow Twitter writer. The Baby Name book. I had never considered using a Baby Name book for character naming. With these books, you can even see what each name means, and therefore make sure the name fits the personality your character is going for!

That being said, I don't believe EVERY name has to reflect the personality of the character. I know a lot of people that are the exact opposite of what their names mean. Characters are no different. In fact, some people might name their characters the exact opposite of what they're personality is supposed to be to make a point or be satirical.

When I am creating a character name, I try to put a twist on an old name that's been used a lot. For example, for my character Charlene Gilmore from my first novel, I wanted to call her Charlie. However, with the Twilight Saga being so popular, I didn't want my Charlie being confused with the male Charlie Swan in those books, so I decided to have her nickname spelled "Charley". I still have people confusing her with a male character, but at least her name spelling is unique.

Another example of this from my own work is the name Simon. I LOVE the name Simon even more now after reading The Mortal Instruments series. In my work in progress story, I have decided to spell the name Symon, to differentiate it just a bit.

Do you see how changing the spelling makes it more unique without it actually being a totally different name? It's a trick I picked up after seeing so many of the same names over and over. I loved the names, but seeing them spelled differently makes them fresh again!

So, how do you guys choose names?

Next week: Character Development: Personality!