Naming Characters: A Tutorial

This is it! You have made a super sexy awesome character that fights evil purple monkeys and saves the world from imminent destruction! All you have to do is write the story! But suddenly, you're stuck. Yes, this character is super sexy and awesome, but... what's their name?  This is a sad attempt at me showing you how to give your characters super sexy names to go along with their super sexy monkey fighting skills!

Option one: Think about it for a long time
    Sometimes if you think about it long enough, inspiration will strike and you'll think of the perfect name for your character. Obviously this doesn't work for everyone, as most people can only think of the names of people they know. Which leads me to option 2...

Option two: Think of people you know
    Now, this option doesn't work for some people because it freaks them out. I hate naming my characters after people I know, or at least see on a daily basis. It makes me feel awkward to talk about the story and talk to the person whose name I stole. But some people are okay with this, so figure out what works for you.

Option three: Abuse the internet
    I assume if you're reading this, you are on the internet. Go to behindthename.com. Think long and hard about your character's personality traits. Enter a trait (ex. strong, smart) into the search bar, but click on the little arrow and change it from "names" to "meanings". Look through the names, but also be aware of the f or m near the name. F means it's a female name, m means male. Some names have both near them. That's okay. Sometimes when you see a name, it clicks with your image of your character, and there you go!

Option four: Abuse the internet, part two
    Behindthename has a lot of other options too. You  can use the Random Renamer (you choose male or female names, what nationalities you want, etc.) or you can select the popular names option and scroll through the most popular names all the way to 1880 (for the US, but you can check dozens of other countries too). Look around the website, find a tool that works for you.

Option five: Abuse the media
    Read a book. See cool name. Give character with no name that name. Simple. Exceeeeept when the book has names that are very unique to that fandom. Also, don't steal too many names from one book or it turns into fan fiction. Similarly, you can steal a name from a movie, TV show, whatever. Maybe your character is named Juliet and her parents are Shakespeare freaks. Have fun with it. But if Katniss Jones is hanging out with her best friend Draco McLaughlin and their teacher’s name is Mr. Rarity, well then, STAHP. But if a character has a name like Dominique, and you think that would be a good fit for your character, that works 19837% better.

Tips and such
    Make sure you love your character's name. It's a pain in the ass to change it once you've written a decent amount, trust me.

    Give them names that fit your story’s circumstances. No high school in America is going to have a Shaneequa Brown and a Yuki Yamamoto and a Riku Hamasaki and a Charles Johnson and a Patrick McFlanagan and a Bertha Grzeskiewicz. If so, what a diverse community! But seriously, there will probably be a lot of Matts, Sarahs, Emmas, Bens, etc, in an American school system. There will be diverse names, like Emily Huang or Emma MacDonald, but don’t be so ridiculous with the character’s names.

    Don't give your character a Mary-Sue name. If all the other characters are named Alice and Sarah and Bob, Princess Cupcake-Sparkles is not a good name for the main character.

    It's okay for your character to have a nickname! And I don't mean calling a character named Michael "Mike", I mean it's okay for Michael to be called "Bug" by everyone. Make up a whacky backstory as to why he's called Bug. Have fun with it. Or maybe only his best friend calls him that.

    Make sure the name corresponds with the country where the story takes place. Naming a white girl Akiko makes no sense, especially if your story takes place in Mexico.

    Make sure the name works with your character's nationality. If your character is 100% Irish, their last name shouldn't be Bronikowski. Bronikowski is a Polish surname. However, if your character is Polish on their dad's side, and Irish on their mom's, Bronikowski is a fine last name.

    Don't use stereotypes!!! Just don't. No one likes them. For example, don't give your character a name that is obviously Polish and make them really stupid (*Disclaimer*: I am half Polish and thus allowed to make fun of my nationality. Also I'm not a very stupid person.) But that also doesn't mean use the exact opposite of stereotypes. For example, don't make every single character with a mildly Polish name ridiculously smart. Just go with what feels right.

    The right name will always come to you. Whether it be from a television show, movie, Shakespeare, the internet, whatever, you will always find the perfect name for your character.