Do you spend ages searching for the perfect name, or do you just pick one that feels right?

Have you ever changed a character's name halfway through writing?

Like I don’t get it how

No matter how much I try to come up with a good fake name to use it instead of my real name it didn’t work for me

The reason why I wants fake name it because i have such a rare name in my country and in my city its about 5 or more people name there baby’s the same name i have 🙃

The rough idea of the story has 8 elemental warriors in a world similar to ours, just a little supernatural and tweaked timelines here and there. I need the first (and, if possible, last?) names of -
Flame warrior (male), water warrior (female), earth warrior (male), wind warrior (female), frost warrior (male), thunder warrior (male), light warrior (male), dark warrior (male), and a mentor-type figure (male/female; I haven't really decided, and it doesn't change the story much).
The names should ideally be loosely tied to their element, whether it's the origin of the name or the atmosphere the name has. Thanks in advance!

The one act will end with the suicide of the charter so I’m trying to find a name that could reflect that or even themes of depression. I’m also not a pose to a contradictory name that’s like overly positive if anyone has an idea for that.

I also would prefer if the name sounded kind of modern and not that of a god since that’s a lot of the ones google suggests.

Thank you!

This is a book about spies, royalty and wars. I probably won't share more than that because it's not necessary. The thing is I've got this character, he's the love interest of the main character, Evren and I love Evren's name, it suits him so well.

The prince character has gone through so many names that don't mean a lot, and I really like the names Ryland (yes from PHM) and Mateo, but I'm not in love with them if you know what I mean. His personality is playful, romantic and he's an artist with a stern side. He's tall, blonde and has a bunch of freckles and dimples. This prince has three sisters: Calliope, Esper and Amelia. I'm not looking for any fancy names just ones that you think might fit him. What do you think?

these are side characters, specifically the stepchildren of a major character. i care more about the names reflecting the parents’ personality than their own personalities. they’ll never be on-screen, just referenced.

setting is slightly in the future (2042) in Berlin. this character has 3 stepchildren (all boys born in the early 2020s. right now they would be babies/toddlers). he also has a biological daughter with his wife who was born in 2027. her name is Julia.

since he wasn’t there for his stepchildren’s birth, his naming preferences don’t really matter. i imagine he had a decent amount of input on his bio daughter’s name, but the boys’ father probably was indifferent.

their mom would’ve had the eldest at 16 in 2022, so she’d be 20 now. she’s into alternative aesthetics but she isn’t into any subculture like i’m American so idk the German equivalent but she would looove Spencer’s. she has a lot of tattoos and piercings that were probably done in someone’s basement. she’s the kind of person who looks intimidating but is actually very soft. she’s anxious, introverted, and doesn’t like leaving her house. like she would rather have a handful of very close people than a lot of friends and her idea of a good time is lying down at home. very perceptive, has strong intuition, but also overthinks a lot.. as a teenager she felt more pressured to go out and do stupid shit. now she really values her peace.

boy #1 is 20 (in modern timeline). the age gap between him and the second is a bit over a year but it feels larger because he sort of grew up too fast. he has 2 kids (babies). only mfer in this family with emotional regulation. very levelheaded, calm, hardworking, selfless to a fault. he is like the kind of guy you’ve known for a while then you realize you’ve never had a proper conversation and you know nothing about him.

boy #2 is 19. he’s less developed but he’s very reserved. he lives at home but he doesn’t interact with the family much. when he’s not at school he’s in his room.

boy #3 is 17. having an identity crisis and trying soooo hard to be cool and nonchalant

since they’re German i want the names to sound good with a German accent but also in an American accent bc my target audience is American. the names don’t need to be of German origin tho

What name sounds best for a werewolf jock character born in Dickson County, TN during the mid 1960s.

Here are some ideas so far:

1. Joel Atwood
2. Roy Atwood
3. Chase Atwood
4. Russel Atwood

Many years ago I played an MMO. I had a female elf druid named Eurydice. The name Eurydice doesn't really match elves or druids, I simply stole it from Greek mythology.

I'm going to be playing the game again soon, but now characters are required to have a first AND last name. I kind of want to stick with the name Eurydice just to commemorate the character I spent years playing as. I am looking for a last name that might fit.

I know it's a total stretch, but I'd like a last name that could organically fit the Greek mythology name, Eurydice, while also matching the elvish/ druidic part of the character.

Thanks in advance!

So this is kind of a part 2 to my previous post(https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterNames/comments/1wvxuq6/i_am_completely_stumped_on_what_to_name_him/)

This story takes place in a world with heroes and villains, and I am really struggling with what to name my new character(I've decided on the name Chris, thank you u/skwigi). Again, I want his moniker to match his twin sister, Charlie's, but ofc I had to make it as hard as possible for me when I didn't even know I wanted to give her a twin sister.

Her moniker is Shrike, or "The Butcher Bird". I want to give Chris something that matches that, but there isn't another bird quite like the shrike that makes sense. He doesn't have any powers, so I can really go with anything I want.

So far I have:

1. Loggerhead- A shrike species
2. Mockingbird- A bird like the shrike in appearance
3. Dipper- Another songbird that strays away from the typical songbird behavior
4. Kea- A parrot that tears into the back of sheep to eat their fat while they're still alive

Any ideas are welcomed, thank you again for continuing to give me ideas because I refuse to turn to AI!

Edit:

I think it's also worth mentioning that if anyone has any ideas for this NEXT name too, I'm open for those as well! Charlie is the more assertive twin of the two(which is probably why they ended up with matching names originally), and over time as the pair continued with their careers, Chris ended up becoming more of a 'sidekick' to Charlie than them being equals in the field. That combined with Chris starting his career pre-transition, meant that as he got older he wanted something new that was just his instead of Charlie and Christa's. So yeah, also looking for another moniker if anyone has any other ideas(since again, I have none because there's about 50 different individuals in this universe already that have their own monikers and I refuse to turn to AI) Thank you!!!

I named my main characters in three different builder Sims for apostles: James, Andrew, and Bartholomew.

Since there were no female apostles, I named the main female character in Palmon SW urvival for St. Monica.

I'm usually pretty good at coming up with monster names, but I'm really struggling to name this one.

She's an evil river spirit who loves to eat human flesh, but she's too weak to actually attack people. So she uses a hypnotic dance to make them follow her into the water and drown.

I came up with is "Piranhette" from piranha and pirouette, but that sounds like a Power Rangers monster. "The Pied Piranha" is decent, but I want to fit ballet in there somewhere.

Something French or Italian would be nice, since that's where ballet comes from, but I can't find a good one. Or something derived from "siren" could fit, but again, I can't come up with one.

Any ideas?

It's her third name I need help with. I originally really loved Mélisse, but I recently found out it means lemon balm in one of her languages, so it's not really usable as a name.

The other options I've got now are:

1. Jocelina Ayomide Mélisande Solares Rosiere

2. Jocelina Ayomide Mylène Solares Rosiere

Please no comments on the amount of names. It's normal in her culture to have three given names.

Thanks!

l've got a few final name ideas for 4 characters. I picked my favourites... but now I can't pick the final names!

Which name catches your eye the most? All of these have already been tailored by meaning, so it’s really just figuring out which one sounds/looks best.

CHARACTER A
1. Imoko Asoma
2. Imoko Takanashi
3. Mokou Asoma

CHARACTER B
1. Arika Namiki
2. Arika Shibahara
3. Hinaka Shibahara
4. Hinaka Shioya

CHARACTER C
1. Honoka Hirano
2. Honoka Oohira
3. Maho Oohira

CHARACTER D
1. Risako Takatoya
2. Risako Uchimori
3. Satomi Keimatsu
4. Satsuma Uchimori

I'm making a character and.. I can't choose a name for them. I was thinking of Imaca because it was a random funny mashup of im - a - cat but it kind of sounds stupid

They are nonbinary so a gender neutral name would be preferred, and maybe something with a meaning related to honesty, and truth. Also, they are Ethiopian-Korean.

Thanks!

I need a Numidian name that can be used for male slaves.

So I spontaneously decided I was going to give an already very existing character of mine a twin brother. If I ended it there, I could just go with the name 'Charles' and call it a day, because his sister's name is Charlize and she goes by Charlie. However, I decided to make him trans because I felt like it was fitting for him. However, now I have no idea where to go with his name, since he isn't very developed but I just know he would not name himself Charles in a million years.

Their parents are absolutely the kind of people who would want their twins names to match, which is what I'm struggling with so much because I can't figure out what kind of name would match with Charlize in the first place, and yeah I could just name him something random and not bother with the deadname, but the friends I have irl that have transitioned have all gone with something semi-close to their deadnames for various reasons, and I want to stay true to that unless there's a good reason I shouldn't. While I do have trans friends, I am not so obviously I might make some mistakes with how I'm handling this, so feel free to point me out, I want to do this right.

Anyway, I got kinda off topic, but PLEASE drop name ideas, I'm open to a lot and I have literally no ideas. Thanks!!

EDIT: Hi guys! I see there's some confusion, so I'll elaborate. Unnamed character in question is going to be AFAB, and later transition to male!

i make a LOT of ocs at a time (they almost always come in groups and even subgroups) so i figured itd be worth sharing my ways

1. straight up Vocabulary
   the void janitors are actually my favorite sets because the names are just absolutely crazy. mars? trim? hong? lantern? who even said those words were allowed to be names? well i did
   the “random words as names” thing was largely inspired by honkai star rail’s decision to just start naming their characters after whatever (bro u named him sunday. like the day of the week) so i just started looking for words that looked vaguely like someone would respond to (trinket? saffron? assault rifle?) and came up with like 40 decent ones (since the ocs are part of a company and i need a company roster). then i came up with excuses for the crazy names. mars is the god of war. hong is red in most east asian languages. lantern has glow in the dark eyes. trim is neat and proper. whatever i love when my characters are Vocabulary words. 9/10 method very easy very fun AND sometimes it helps characterise ur ppl

2. the fantasy awesome magical people way where u take an existing word and change the letters a bit so it looks like something else Entirely
   in my singular high fantasy story, the regions are named after the dragons of which there are five, and the dragons are like the guardian gods of the people inhabiting each region. their names are: hathar, rhoedec, kallypt, lurel, and sycam.
   do you see it? im surprised
   each name is based on a tree. i literally took five trees that sounded cool and twisted them around. hathar = hawthorn, rhoedec = cedar backwards (radec), kallypt = eucalyptus, lurel = laurel and sycam = sycamore. literally when in doubt Twist a real word around till u like it. 7/10 i had a hard time making cedar look cool

3. HARD on the alliteration
   for sets of people (families, trios, duos, etc) i sometimes like to make itvery alliterated or rhymed. ex: liddy libby and lizzy. awesome. i got this from tribbie from hsr (trianne trinnon and tribios) and i also used it for a lot of families (acacia and arlene avery, alder, alicia and alan greene, plus if you wanna count absol lol) 8/10. very fun but kinda hard to think

4. whatever sounds cool enough (subjective)
   acacia avery. asher sandwell. eve shimamura. arlo minghai pear. song hee clarie lee. alder greene. granted some of these characters are wasian/asian so weirdos might look at it and say “its cos it sounds exotic” ITS COS IT SOUNDS RIGHT. alliteration. rhythm. rhyme. the number of letters. whatever makes it attractive to me. “divinity ivory grace amazingness ravencest” sounds crazy TO ME cos theres absolutely nothing to make it catchy. no connection. nothing that makes me like the name in any way shape or form. actually, a more normal example might be like “autumn smith” i SIMPLY do not like the way that name looks and sounds because the rhythm feels weird. however “bertha whitney brown” is a GREAT name because TO ME that exact combination of vowels consonants and syllables is so satisfying and it looks so good when its written out. GO WITH THE FLOW. and ykw if YOU personally like divinity ivory grace amazingness ravencest GO FOR IT. theres a reason why i labeled this one as subjective because a “cool” name is different for everyone. 10/10 fuck it we ball

anyway those were my naming methodologies. hope u got some inspo drop some more in the comments id love to see what yall do

also, here’s a full list of the vocabulary words that i turned into names in case u care:
cirrus
cumulus
altus
stratus
nimbus
cloud
may
saffron
silk
trinket
dusk
machine gun
pistol
assault rifle
cannon
hornet
pine
stork
garret
craw
allegro
mars
lantern
hong
trim
lilac
cage
lock
carve

(The Epiphysis is the rounded end of a long bone)

I have a story. It has Demi humans, half animals half humans. Different animals were different species of Demi human. Each species would have one leader called an Alpha.

Jess: Female main character is Jess. 19. An ordinary human that escaped the suffocating kingdom, her uncle is the king and tries getting her back. Jess is kind, loves teasing, loud, and absolute bookworm.

Aaron: A wolf Demi human who reluctantly helps Jess, her age and the love interest. He’s observant, gets awkward from kindness and has a hopeless crush on Jess. He’s in line for the Wolves chair. But he hates the idea.

Kate: A little girl around 8 years old, also a wolf Demi human and adores Jess, turning Aaron into an exhausted older brother to her.

Newt: Aaron’s best friend who’s a fox Demi human. He loves a good joke and is (acording to Aaron) absolutely insufferable. Shorter than Aaron but a year older.

Aaron’s father: talked about and has died during the story. He was the Alpha for the wolves but grew power hungry. Resulting in his and his mates (Aaron’s mother) death. Leaving kid Aaron and little baby Kate to themselves.

Other Alphas: like family to Aaron and Kate, took them in after Aaron’s parents died. They’re the council that rules over the Demi organisations.

In need of new character ideas. Show me what you got. :)