The name that no human research can discover...

[vynessia361]

The naming of cats characters is a difficult matter...

Sometimes I wonder if the real reason I write fanfiction (and part of why most of my original stories tend to die early on) has nothing to do with pre-existing worlds, characters or ideas. Maybe it's names.

Because every time I try to come up with a name for something or someone, I end up

Comments

[matt_doyle]

Baby name websites. I go with the appropriate cultural background, and then go through it in one of two ways; I look for pretty names whose meaning means something to me as an author, and pretty names whose meaning would mean something to the character's parents. For last names, I generally go down Wikipedia lists of famous people from the right cultural background until I have something that sounds right

[vynessia361]

Huh. It never occurred to me that I could change the lettering around, rather than just using preexisting words. (Wow, I feel oblivious now...)

So is "Juniper" too obvious for a prickly-mannered healer's apprentice? (At this point her last name is probably going to be "Heggeweed" or "Betel," but neither one is really clicking.)

Random thought: What about the reverse? Do you ever use names that are strictly the opposite of the character's temperament, just for fun and/or irony? (Like naming a thief "Justinian," or something.)

[matt_doyle]

It's happened that way once or twice, if the tone of the story is ironic or humorous enough.

Juniper is not necessarily too obvious, but it's plain enough that I'd want the text to justify it by having her come from a family or society with naming conventions that make her name not stand out.