Name that Character!

by Nancy Sackheim

You’ve changed your characters’ names so many times you need a cheat sheet for who was who before you renamed them who they are now, and your writing group collectively blanches every time you bring in pages. You need help, and Google is ready with over 2 billion ways to help when you search “how to choose a character’s name.”

Author of Small Change, CG Blake recommends making the character’s name easy to pronounce and memorable, evoking the intended emotional response in your reader.

Elizabeth Simms, in a guest column for Writer’s Digest reminds us “to browse for names in the era you’re writing,” and goes on to recommend searching small public libraries which often have decades' of high school yearbooks on their shelves.

Other sources include baby name sites, phone books, graveyards, and a particular favorite for fun and distraction…online character name generators. There are thousands of sites that allow you to select a character’s name according to gender, age, era, nationality, personality, etc., including who their favorite super hero is, and whether they believe in elves…no really!

If you still are unable to settle on a character’s name, there is a solution that has been around for centuries, but is somewhat recently on the uptick. Don’t name your character anything. Let the narrator be anonymous. You will be in good company, i.e., Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.

Image Credit:Photo by Camille Orgel on Unsplash