The Easy Way to Name Your Characters

At first I thought that I needed to pick the right names for my characters: to mean something, to sound good, to be memorable. But if you read fantasy a lot, especially high fantasy, then you know that made up names can be a mouthful. So, when I wrote Forget me Not, I spend a lot of times on baby names websites looking for, what I thought needed to be the perfect pick.

Funny enough, I probably spent more time picking names for fictional people than I did for my own daughter.

In hindsight, it was exhausting and, frankly, unnecessary. What I didn’t realize then was that a character’s name doesn’t make or break them. It’s the personality, the emotions, and the choices that give a character life. The name? That’s just a label. And while it might need to fit the character, it’s not something worth pulling your hair out over.

Now, my approach to naming characters is completely different — and much simpler. Instead of diving into an endless quest for the perfect name, I rely on the first instinct that comes to me. If nothing pops up right away, I have an even easier backup method: I turn to social media.

The Stress of the “Perfect Name”

Back when I first started writing, I used to obsess over names. I’d convince myself that the right name would unlock something crucial about the character, like the key to their entire being rested in that one decision. If the name didn’t sound just right, I felt like I was cheating the character somehow. And so, I scrolled. Baby name websites became my go-to, and I must’ve visited them more when writing novels than I did when my daughter was born.

Sometimes I would narrow down a list of possibilities and try out a few options in the story, almost like auditioning the names. Did the character feel like a “Zachary” or more of an “Ethan”? I’d write a few sentences, swap out the name, and reread the passage to see if it clicked. Of course, none of this got me any closer to writing. It was just another form of procrastination disguised as creativity.

What I was doing back then wasn’t really about character development. It was about aesthetics. I wanted the names to sound cool, to be original enough to stand out but not too weird to break immersion. I was preoccupied with how the names looked on the page rather than what the characters did in the story. In the end, that’s the real measure of whether a character sticks with you — not the name, but the choices they make, the way they move through the world.

The Easiest Method Possible

These days, I’ve shed all that stress. I don’t agonize over names like I used to, because I’ve learned something important: names can be changed. Simple as that. The first name you choose doesn’t need to be perfect because it’s not carved in stone. If you get deeper into the story and realize the name doesn’t fit, you can always adjust it later. The story should come first, and the characters will grow into their names, not the other way around.

Today, for instance, I needed to name two characters for Ghost in the Attic, a pair of college girls who go missing in the story. I didn’t overthink it. I opened X (formerly Twitter), glanced at the usernames in my feed, and there they were: Vicky and Lindsay. The first two girl names I’d seen within seconds of scrolling.

There’s something almost liberating about this process. It strips away the pressure of finding the “right” name and just lets me focus on writing. Vicky and Lindsay might not be names I’d spent hours searching for in the past, but they fit. They fit because I let them exist without too much deliberation, allowing the story to shape them.

The Name Doesn’t Define the Character

Here’s the thing: your readers aren’t going to remember your character’s name just because it’s unique or sounds cool. They’re going to remember the character because of how that person made them feel, what that person did, and how their journey resonated with them. The name is incidental. Unless you pick a name with a special meaning — then you do you.

Think about some of the most iconic characters in literature — the classics. Holden Caulfield. Elizabeth Bennet. Jay Gatsby. These are names that are memorable, sure, but it’s not the name itself that sticks with you — it’s the experiences of those characters, and the emotions they evoke. You remember Holden’s loneliness and frustration with the world, Lizzie’s wit and independence, and Gatsby’s tragic obsession. The names are secondary.

When I give a character a name now, I’m not trying to define them by that choice. The name is just a placeholder for the person they’re going to become. If the character is strong enough, they’ll make the name work, not the other way around.

Read the full article on Medium.