Does anyone else really struggle to come up with the names for their characters? I often find that I have stories in my head ready to write but spend hours trying to find the right names for the characters. I can imagine everything about them but names just escape me. Does anyone have tips on how to come up with names?
Names for characters arise almost the same way a parent names a child after birth. But for commercial purposes it would be best to ensure that the name is
1)easy to pronounce
2)fits the character's culture
3)memorable
4)unique
But then again most popular characters have mundane names like "Harry", "Alex", "Bella" etc...
It's the character's character that counts to the reader.
I, stupidly, used the name for my protagonist that I wanted for my first child. Obviously that can never happen now. Plus, since I don't exactly go easy on her, I think my future child would feel insulted :P
I go to babynamesworld.com and look up the meanings of names. After that I find something that sounds right and has a meaning that relates to the character in some way. Other times the name comes to me.
I named a character after Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt. But my character was a male. So I spelled it a little differently and changed it to "Artemeus,"
the "Meus" adds a heavier sound at the end and therefore, I found it to be more masculine sounding. It also depends on the culture they are from. I mostly write fantasy so my humans, elves, troll, ect all have different sounding names. Example, my vampires tend to have an "us" at the end of male names and an "elle" at the end of the name for females. While the female elfish names tend to end in a's and elfish males end in "th".