{"id":9796,"date":"2025-10-13T16:17:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T15:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.novlr.org\/the-reading-room\/?p=9796"},"modified":"2025-10-14T12:35:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T11:35:45","slug":"how-do-you-come-up-with-good-character-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.novlr.org\/the-reading-room\/how-do-you-come-up-with-good-character-names\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you come up with good character names?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“I’ve been struggling with naming my characters for weeks now. I keep second-guessing every name I choose, worried it’s not meaningful or unique enough. How do you come up with good character names? And how do you know when you’ve found the right one?”<\/em><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I feel this dilemma so deeply. Naming characters (and settings, and other worldbuilding elements) is the bit I struggle with the most. I\u2019ll name something and immediately second-guess myself. I hate it so much that my manuscript first drafts often don\u2019t contain any names at all, just placeholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s natural to want character names to be perfect, meaningful, and memorable. But like many aspects of writing, pursuing perfection can become a roadblock and stop you from making progress. So let\u2019s look at some techniques that might help you find inspiration, or at least get out of the mindset of perfectionism that may stop you from writing in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t let naming stop your writing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Letting a name kill your writing buzz is the biggest danger when it comes to naming characters. Trying to come up with the perfect name for something or someone can be incredibly time-consuming and is one of the biggest reasons you might not get any writing done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, it easily becomes a procrastination technique, or even a demotivator. You can spend hours on names to put off doing the actual legwork of writing. And if you struggle to come up with names, it\u2019s easy to let intrusive thoughts convince you that if you can\u2019t do this one task, how will you be able to do the rest of it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You must force yourself through that point. Set yourself a time limit for how long you\u2019ll spend on a name. After that, use a placeholder and get to writing. You\u2019ll have a much easier writing experience if you force yourself to get out of your own head and start putting words on the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t be afraid of placeholders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You don’t need to have the perfect name to start writing. Placeholders are a valid way to write and wait until inspiration strikes. I do it all the time. My drafts are littered with [MC] (main character) and [LI] (love interest) tags because I haven\u2019t come up with anything I like yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also use actual names as placeholders, and you might even find that the longer you sit with them, the more you\u2019ll grow to like them. It\u2019s a common truism that placeholders often end up being the names that stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn when names matter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not all names need to be perfectly thought out. Protagonists and villains carry a lot of weight in your story, so you might give a bit more thought to them. But not every character needs the same attention to detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background characters or minor supporting roles can have simpler names, and in fact, common names can actually help ground your story and make it feel more authentic. They all need to be appropriate for your worldbuilding, but not every name needs to carry meaning or narrative significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practical strategies for naming characters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re really stuck in naming characters, this is a list of ways I\u2019ve found inspiration. This works for characters, settings, and other worldbuilding<\/a> elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n