Naming A Character

The majority of my characters only have a first name. If I was doing this the proper way I would have a complete character profile with first and last name, mother's maiden name, shoe size, and topics this character would discuss in therapy.

But, most of my characters have one name, not like Cher, but like Susan. Except one. This character needed a first and a last name. I've been calling him something else the entire time I have been working on my book. A real name that everyone knows; someone this character resembles. So today that needed to change.

I Googled "Name Generator" and was pleasantly surprised. There is a generator for pirate's names, and quite a few for fantasy elfin druid characters. But I just needed a regular name, something special, but not something unpronounceable.

I found the Fake Name Generator, which supplies a full name, address, social security number, and credit card info for your fake person. I hope this is fake, if it is all real people's information for easy fraud transactions I apologize. I mixed and matched names, and no matter what I did there was a real somebody with a Facebook account and everything.

I finally gave up and just used a name I liked. So some guy in Botswana has the same name as my character, and so does a geneticist in Berlin.

Comments

[Name Generator Boy]

Try the Character Name generator at Generator Land as well. You get a first and last name (from census data), along with occupation, personality and location.

http://www.generatorland.com/generators/character_name_generator_gl.php

[Kerri]

Thanks for this tip! I will check it out, it looks a little more geared to character development. Cool!