Choosing a character name

Just a quick one. How much thought do you give to character names?

Charles Dickens was the master of charactonym: That’s to say a name that is somehow descriptive of the character who bears it.

But we don’t have to be that deep most of the time. However, you don’t want a load of “John Smith”s as well right? So is there a middle-ground?

There’s a lot of ways of approaching this, but one is to get into the etymology of the names.

How about naming character something that they can live up to? Check out this site, behind the name.

It’s not just a database of names (as useful as that is), it gives you the etymology of names. Conventional as well as more interesting.

It’s just a nice tool to pick names with a little more intention that you otherwise might.

Another tool in the toolbox. Enjoy!