What Are Your Characters Names?

[Mistress Of The Obvious 65]

I know a lot of us spend a good chunk of time figuring out our characters names. I'd love to know why you named them what you did. Did you love the meaning behind it? A certain sound or tone to it? 

[clipsed 231]

Most of my names are just things I stumble on and think "hey that sounds cool". Occasionally I'll go for theme names within a family -- for example, my resort owner's daughter is named Holliday, and she has siblings Somersby (like summer!) and Irene and Paxton (which both tie into peaceful/calm).

[Huskerdust 621]

My current roster:

Sephtis

Yamir

Azmaray

Soren

Vesper

Firefly

Calex

Faux

Quill

Xeroth

Royce

Rizka

Estian

Raziya

Lumi

Nightshade

Zophiel

Lutao

Foxy

Albion

Harlen

Zelphyr

 

This is on a private animanga fantasy rp, so the names can be out there.

[Menalippe 3]

I choose primarily based on where they/their ancestors were from, and whether or not their full name has a nice mouthfeel to it.

 

For example, one of my characters is a Chinese woman, so she of course is going to have a Chinese name; additionally, when I registered her account, I put her family name first since that's usually the order someone would give their name (family then personal name):

• Xiang Yue

My Belgian man had a different set of 'rules'; you might be more likely to have a German, French or Dutch name based on where in Belgium you are. This character is from Flanders, so his first and middle names are Dutch:

• Maximiliaan Emerens

But since his father was German, his surname is also German:

• Maximiliaan Emerens Stahl

My weirdest character name was born entirely from a typo; his name is Brody, but I mistyped it as 'Birdy' one time, and now that's his nickname forever.

 

My remaining characters, frankly, were chosen overwhelmingly because they had a nice 'feel' to them.

• Nolan O'Rourke
• Sam MacLaren
• Liam Toland, Jr.

[Huskerdust 621]

Oh yes, when I do RL settings, I also choose names that fit in with their family background. For example, a jewish character with a jewish surname, taiwanese-american with an appropriate name. Naming characters is one of the most enjoyable parts of creating characters for me!

[Elena 545]

I also keep into account their nationality, the period when they were born and the family dynamics.  You cannot just choose a name because you like it, if it did not exist in that time or if it belonged to an enemy country when the child was born (and the family had no family ties to there), because it would outcast the child....
The favourite names I use in most writings are Marina (also became my penname when I got published), Roxana, Emilia (I would have named my daughters so, if I had any),  for men Andrea/ Andrei (depending on nationality), Alexandru/ Alessandro (again, depending on nationality), Giuseppe/ Jose/ Iosif and a few others.