I think every fiction writer has had a character where they struggle with the name or even look back and wonder where a name came from.  In fact, I find it awkward when people ask me how I came up with a character’s name.  Many of my character names appeared out of thin air or I simply searched a name of books until something caught my eye.  Typically, the second method goes for secondary characters.  So, why are names so important and confusing?

I really wish I had a universal answer for this question, but I only have a personal one.  My characters take on a mental life to me, so I take their names very seriously.  I probably have up to a month before the names are locked in with no changes.  There are always exceptions like a character becoming more important to the story.  For example, Linny Grasdon becoming Kira Grasdon, which is now a name set in stone.  Yet, it really has to be extreme for me to do a major name change.  Linny became Kira because she started a romance with Luke and the matching ‘L’ names confused even me at times.

I do think this is mostly a fiction writer problem and that there is a lack of understanding from some people who don’t play in fiction.  A great example would be Luke Callindor and a conversation from long ago.  I took a writing workshop where I showed off Beginning of a Hero for the first time.  The person running the workshop didn’t write fiction, but wished to give me as much advice as she could.  One of her suggestions was to change Luke’s name because of Luke Skywalker.  I actually took offense at this one because it had never been said and I felt like my child had just been insulted.  Yes, I know authors have to take criticism and let it roll off, but this was 10 years ago and I was fresh out of college.  Even so, I still don’t like the reasoning behind this and it created a week of me considering it.  People even suggested a more ‘fantastical’ name for Luke or to make it Luk, Luc, or Looc.  Needless to say, Luke Callindor stayed Luke Callindor and I claimed that it isn’t fair for me to change a character’s name because somebody has another character with the same first name.

This does bring up the sensitivity to names and the power they hold.  Writers can be very temperamental about the criticism of names because that is usually the first thing a reader will remember about a character.  If you say the name sucks then you might as well trash the entire character for some writers.  *raises hand*  For many writers, the name is the foundation of the character with the meaning of the name guiding the development.  How many of us have gone looking for a unique name that means some type of positive trait?  Somehow that name can become a mental fire that births the rest of the character and gives them a feeling of solidness that they would lack with a throwaway name or no name.  I know that I have trouble tossing characters away that have researched and true names because they feel more real to me than a minor character that I slapped a moniker on.

On the idea of name hunting, try finding a name with a meaning that is negative.  It’s not possible, which might be why there are so many villains named Damien or some version of that.  I have no real suggestion for villain naming.  I’m not even 100% certain how I get names of my villains.  I assume I toss letters into a pot in some dark ritual done in my sleep and I wake up with a villain name.  Either that or my wife creates them and whispers them to me in my sleep like a dark muse of villainy.  One non-psychotic idea that could work for villain names and help with character development is to do the same thing you do for heroes.  Look up meanings of names with positive traits and have that trait be within your villain.  This can cement the name and give your villain a little depth to go along with whatever it is that he or she does to be considered evil.

As you can possibly tell, I take my character names very seriously after I actually name them, but I have very little idea on how I come to that.  Maybe they’re already in my head and I just need to wait for them to tell me their name whether by dreams or drawing my attention to it in the real world.  Again, I can never answer the question of where a name came from.  I’ve been asked this a few times over the years about Luke specifically, which always results in the Callindor versus Skywalker conversation.  I’ll say what I always said.  The name popped into my head after I made a Dungeons & Dragons character and it would be three semesters before I gave him a last name.  The last name was a night of tossing letters together until something meshed with his first name.  So, maybe as important as names are to a character, the method of getting that name might not be as important.