Tried using a random word generator for character names and it backfired hard

I was at a coffee shop in Portland last Tuesday and let an app spit out a name like 'Zorp Blix' for my fantasy novel, then spent the whole session rewriting the scene because it sounded ridiculous. Has anyone else found a better trick for naming characters without derailing your flow?

3 comments

3 Comments

wadew5124d ago

That name sounds like something from a sci-fi B-movie from the 1950s. What kind of setting are you working with, fantasy or something else? The trick I've found is to pull names from old census records or gravestones, they feel grounded and real because they actually were.

susanb3423d ago

Wait, have you ever gotten a name so weird you had to call a friend and laugh? This one time my buddy was writing a historical thing and found a name in an old census that looked totally fake: "Fanny Cradock." Turns out it was a real British chef from the 70s or something. He still used it for a minor character, said it added some color. You ever run into a name that good?

morgan.rose24d ago

And that's exactly why I started doing that too, actually. I was trying to name a character for a fantasy story (think low magic, not elves and dragons or whatever) and I spent weeks going through baby name websites and it all felt so fake. Then I hit up a local historical society's website, they had scans of old church records from the 1800s. Found a name like "Eliza Jane" but also some real odd ones like "Zebulon" and "Thankful" (which I guess was a virtue name or something? Wild). It changed everything for me because suddenly the names had weight, like they lived real lives and carried real stories. Now my main character is named after someone who actually existed in 1872 and it just feels better in the writing, you know?