by Deborah Raney
There are many different ways authors come up with names for their characters and even
more stories surrounding character names. Here are just a few of my stories.
I wanted 12 kids and had a list of 24 names for boys and girls long before my first baby
was born. Some of those names that I didn’t get to use for real babies became characters in my
novels. Like John and Ellen Brighton in my first novel, A Vow to Cherish. (My original character
was named Jake, but when the book became a movie, his name got changed to John, which was
also on my list of favorite names for boys!)
I used family names for both first and last names in my novel Over the Waters. My characters, Joshua Jordan, Samantha Courtney, Sarah, Kala, Alex, and Wesley from Over the Waters have the names of my nieces and nephews in real life.
And I used three of my grandmothers’ names—Dorothy, Helen, and Stella—in my historical novella, Circle of Blessings. Not only was it a way to honor my grandmothers but I knew those names would be authentic to the time period I was writing about.
Without knowing the baby names our pregnant daughter had chosen, I named the hero in
Insight Reed before our oldest grandson Reed was born.
And I named the heroine in Almost Forever Bryn (with one N), before our oldest
granddaughter Brynn (with two N’s) came along. It was too late to change either one of them,
but my kids didn’t seem to mind (since my characters were fine, upstanding role models.)
I did make a big mistake with the characters’ names in my Camfield Legacy series. Since
all my real-life kids names start with T, I thought it would be realistic for my three sisters
character names to start with N. But in book, that can be very confusing for the reader. And it
didn’t help that my characters each had nicknames too. Understandably, some readers had
trouble keeping track of Nattie, Nikki, and Noey, let alone Natalie, Nicole, and Noel!
The characters in The God Who series purposely have unusual names because…well,
that’s real life. So Liesl—rhymes with diesel—is my heroine in Who Touches the Mountains.
And Tadhg is the hero in Who Stirs Up the Sea. It’s a good Irish name that’s pronounced like the
first syllable in Tiger—Tige—but you won’t believe how it’s spelled. T-A-D-H-G. I bet I’ve
typed it wrong about a hundred times. (P.S. Tadhg has brothers named Declan and Liam
because…Irish!)
I spend a lot of time on the names of my main characters, googling them to make sure I
haven’t given my character the name of someone famous, or the name of an unsavory character
on TV or in real life. I check to be sure the initial don’t spell something funny or profane (unless
that fits my story!) My poor mom had initials that spelled W-A-R. It didn’t help one bit when she
married my dad and added a T to that mess. W-A-R-T. (Needless to say, she didn’t own anything
that was monogrammed! 🙂 )
I always say my characters’ names aloud to make sure they’ll sound okay in the audio book version.
And that the hero and heroine’s names go well together. (Or not, depending
on the type of story I’m writing. It might be a fun plot point if my heroine would be embarrassed
to add the hero’s name to hers. I once knew a Marge who married a guy with the surname Barge.
Unfortunate, despite her being nice and thin, and them having a very happy marriage.)
My names for secondary characters are often pulled from the obituary pages of the
newspaper for older characters, or school graduation or sports programs for younger ones. I grab
a first name from one and a surname from another, and then I don’t have to waste too much time
thinking about names for characters who may only appear once or twice in a novel.
Do you have a special story behind your characters’ names? I’d love to hear your stories
or ideas in the comments!
DEBORAH RANEY‘s first novel, A Vow to Cherish, inspired the World Wide Pictures film of the same title and launched Deb’s writing career. Forty-plus books and numerous awards later, she’s still creating stories that touch hearts and lives. She and her husband enjoy traveling, e-biking, and spending time with 14 awesome grandkids. Find Deb at https://deborahraney.com/.
Comments 14
I love hearing how authors pick their character names. My character names reflect a main trait they possess–so the names become kind of like an Easter egg. So … in my book, “New Star,” each Wise Man’s name means “wise” in their native language. All the main orbital characters have names that mean something important about them as well. Fun!
That’s cool, Lana. I, too, love hearing how other authors choose their characters’ names.
I like to scan box scores from baseball games, or study depth charts of college and pro football teams, and pick one of the more obscure names, sometimes matching a first name of one player to a last name of another. Read through enough names, and something always hits me.
Great! I do the same with high school and college graduation programs, especially for my younger characters.
Such an interesting post, Deb! Thank you!
In my novel titled The Madonna of Pisano, I named the child character Nico. Years later, my daughter and son-in-law named their little boy Nico. I’ve also used family names for some of my other characters.
I think it’s a really special way to honor a loved one or dear friend. Love the name Nico. My friend has a grandson with that name.
Using family names is a great way to choose character names. One time a fellow author friend named a villain after me, LOL! I keep an eye out when I’m reading for any interesting names. I have a character in an upcoming story named Sorrow, and I had come across that name quite a few years back in a seaside, sad story I read. I kept the name with me until I had a story that fit the name.
Oooh, there’s a special fun to having a VILLAIN named after you! That made me smile, Priscilla!
And Sorrow is such a sad name. But wow, you just know there’s a story behind that!
For my suspense novel, I’m using either the first or last name from a local college softball team from the past 40 years. But never the first and last name together.
Yep, that’s probably a good idea. You never know when one of those guys will become famous and do something your character would NEVER do! 😉
Promise not to tell: I gave my very evil villain in my current (unpublished yet) novel the first name Travis, my high school principal, whom I disliked. That provided a couple of giggles, even in the hard parts of the plot.
LOL! You just told the WHOLE world, Lee. 🙂 But that’s kind of funny.
I decided on the name Matthias for the hero of my first manuscript because it’s one of my favorite names. It means God’s Gift, which, given his loving family upbringing, felt appropriate. Since I write in the 14th century, I have to remain within the era, too. Though I’ve sometimes fudged a bit. I like my characters having names that correlate with their personalities or occupations when possible. All my knight characters’ names have meanings that correlate with themes of honor or strength, with the exception of a brooding knight, Gareth, whose name means “gentle”, because it sounded fun to have an odd opposition to his character, lol. And a ship captain’s two daughters have names which correlate to the sea. I used the first name of my pastor’s deceased father as the middle name for one of my characters, because it sounded kind of cool. Alas, as I’m still single and have no children yet, I have to settle for naming book characters. But I want a son I can name Matthias one day. Because I love the idea of bestowing such a legacy.
I have a character in Chasing Dreams (and he appears again in Finding Wings) named Mateo, which is a form of Matthias with the same meaning. It was especially poignant when my character realized that the pre-teen she saw as a major annoyance is really a gift from God. 🙂