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naming problems

magic15magic15
edited August 2007 in - Writing Problems

Comments

  • magic15magic15
    hi I wondeer if you can help me I am stuck with trying to two names for my characters, who are invovled are invovled in a conspiracy that I am writing. The theme is decisions and change.

    The first charcaters is male and the other is female. The job of the first character is councillor. and the other is his wife
                        Phil. 
  • TashTash
    How old are they?
  • Mad Doctor DribbleMad Doctor Dribble
    And are they Europe based, US based?  What time period is it set in? 
  • JennyJenny
    A Google search for names will provide you with umpteen lists - have a browse through one or two. You'll know when you've found the right names as they'll jump out at you!
  • MrsJMrsJ
    I keep a list of names that I jot down when I hear them and they appeal to me or I think they are particularly apt for a character.  You could try looking at your local authority website for councillors if you get stuck.
  • VivViv
    Is this a serious question?? If you know your characters well (and you should do if you are going to write about them) then you know how old they are, what they look like, their social background, nationality, education etc. Only you know what names would suit. Anything we suggest would just be plucked from our own favourites list and would have no bearing on your characters. So long as you don't pick something wildly ridiculous like Alberto and Griselda Higginbottom, they could be called just about any normal names. Go with your gut feeling. Try Martin and Jessica Brown, or James and Anthea Parkinson, or if they are older George and Martha something - there are millions of combinations. Go with your own gut feeling. They are your creations, after all!
  • Marc.BMarc.B
    Viv, you've offended my husband Alberto and me.  Yours, Griselda Higginbottem. (marcB is my pen name)
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    Hi. Welcome to Talkback. Tell me their ages, and I'll see if I can find the most popular names for when they were born.
  • Isabella KingIsabella King
    Don't ask Jay, all his characters are called A and B or X and Y
  • JoanneJoanne
    If I don't immediately have a name for a character, I generally flick through a dictionary of names and draw up a short list of 2 or 3.  Then as I'm writing the story I quickly find that one of those names suits the character better than the others, so that's the one I settle on.  I find it hard to get very far into a story until I've got the names right.
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    Or Jamie and Sam. When I was compiling the flash fiction collection, I was practically driven mad by having to find other names.
  • CarolCarol
    It's always worth getting a book of names and putting it on your shelf. I have one that gives famous/well known people with that name and the general time it was popular.
    The wrong name for your character can ruin your story.
  • dorothyddorothyd
    can I recommend my favourite names book, The Encyclopaedia of Christian Names by EJ Withycombe.  It has resolved many problems for me. One of my novels, a teen one (not yet published) started in 495AD and ended up in 1995AD with 100 year leaps in between each chapter.  So, the names had to be right for the period.  I found without that book I would have come seriously unstuck.  When it was checked by a historian (Bodley Head accepted it and then dropped it, sob sob) every name was right.
    It has also shown me recently that every modern historian has misspelled my Earl's name, much to his amusement. It is Antony.  The H didn't arrive for another century. I love gloating in my Notes at the back of the biography ... how they are all wrong ... because so many of them Think They Know It All!
  • JennyJenny
    How odd that someone decided an H should be inserted into the name when it isn't even pronounced.

    If it was, our previous PM would have been Thony Blair!! (Phony Blair I could have understood!)
  • robin1robin1
    Tarquin & Agnes, I think Jay will appreciate the quality of those names.  Hehe.
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    They sound familiar somehow.
  • robin1robin1
    Well,I do not sense any tearing out of hair followed by "why does he keep suggesting these godforsaken names, will he not learn!"

    And Agnes is such a lovely woman after all, kindly desposed to small animals and she also makes very good fairy cakes.

    Whilst Tarquin is "considerably richer than thou", he is not rich enough to attempt a name change.  He was probably bullied at school and has never really recovered from it.  But on the plus side he enjoys Agnes' cakes.

    Now do you still not like them even after all that, Jay?  Very wholesome characters if you ask me.  Hehe.
  • CarolCarol
    But they sound like 70 year old's.
  • robin1robin1
    I know, I know.  I will let them go...goodbye Agnes, goodbye Tarquin.

    As for the original question, what about John (councillor) and his wife Evette?  Is that how you spell Evette?
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    Yvette?
  • robin1robin1
    Thanks Jay, had a thick moment.  Have to be honest not quite sure about the last message.  Guess they didn't like Evette...sorry, Yvette.
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    MW is a vet!
  • dorothyddorothyd
    In the USA Anthony is pronounced as it is written. Only here do we use the H and not use it, as it were.
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    I sent a short story to someone in the States. One of the characters was called Anthony. The American asked why I kept repeating the word 'Tone'. It was set (sorry!) in a hair salon, so perhaps so confusion arose there.
  • dorothyddorothyd
    regional? Anthony Kedis is apparently AntHony.
  • JennyJenny
    My main objection with names (of people and places) is when they're pronounced in a totally different way to the spelling, eg:

    Featherstonehaugh = Fanshaw
    Dalziel = Diyal (as in Dalziel and Pascoe)
    Menzies = Mingis
    Des Moines = Demoyne (that's neither French nor English pronunciation!)

    It's only done to make people sound like twerps when they get it wrong!!
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    Calling characters XXX and YYY can lead to inadvertent hilarity.

    Even Steven
    Even Evan
    Peter petered out
    Gay guy, Guy

    And you have to be careful about changing names. I changed Richard to Stephen, and ended up with 'Stephen Of York Gave Battle In Vain.'

    Then I changed a name, and found pROBlem, pROBability, and wardROBe got changed, too. (My excuse was a different computer.)

    One author used his own names - and forgot to change them before the book went to print.
  • Island GirlIsland Girl
    The Chief makes me giggle. I'm well known for talking to myself while I write, mulling over my stories. For example, I might say something aloud (but thinking to myself) such as, "Hmm, having a bit of trouble with this character."
    He'll jump in and say things like, "How about Morris Beanham for a name? Or Sidney Davison?"
    Hehehe, I don't know how many times I have to say (politely and gently) that I don't need a name, I need a personality. Poor fella doesn't get it but he always makes me smile with his gritty determination to come up with names. I think I made the mistake of using one of his invented names for a character once. I thought it might appease him for a while but it only encouraged him, I'm afraid.
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