Relatable

Character Naming

I like pretty names like everyone else but sometimes people just go over the top in naming their characters.

For example, a story which has over 60% of the characters with flower names... This is not okay unless the obsessive naming has a purpose in the story. Like... let's say they're all fairies and live in a garden, and are named after the flower they were created from.

Then there are those super sophisticated names given in an attempt to stand out, that no one can pronounce/read out loud, probably not even the author. In these cases for me, the character is just harder to relate to and I often make up a nickname that is only a few letters long, and I forget the actual name as soon as I finish reading.

And there are also those names that have been used in famous works like Christian, Gray *cough* (in my case it was totally unintentional, I swear...)Harry (Styles or Potter) and other such names, which may be more or less well known for you, depending on what you read before. These kinds of names are impossible to avoid, after all if you like a name, you just do, but for some it makes it harder to get into the character because they'll be comparing it with the "original".

Gray isn't so wishy-washy, Harry is more courageous, and so on.

In such cases where a name is famous because of a more popular story, I highly recommend showing/delivering a unique characteristic that makes your character stand out, earlier in the story. It might be the way he chews on a tobacco when he's pondering which is a sure sign he's up to no good, or his preferences in wordings, dialect, anything that would form him into a 3-D character rather than a simple carbon-copy of the original.

Start his/her character with a strong characteristic that makes them who they are in your mind.

That's about it with the rant, see you next time!

*This is simply a rant and should be taken as such, I like all names unless they're insulting or degrading of a person, group or ethnicity.