Monday, August 9, 2010

Monday Musings

What's in a name?



That famous line uttered by Romeo has SO much to do with writing.  How do you chose your character's names?  Stephenie Meyer picked Bella's name, because it's what she would have named her daughter, a woman in RWA with me picks out normal names and drags out vowel sounds or softens them.

How do I pick my character's names?

Well there are a number of ways...

My main character's love interest in MY PAPER HEART is named Blaine Crabtree.

Now I love me some college football, so I combined two college footballers names.  Blaine Gabbert of Mizzou and Michael Crabtree = Blaine Crabtree.

But Olivia Grace Gentry...that one took some more thought.

But a book is like your child, you raise it, take care of it, then send it off to school to let a teacher watch over it and guide it...(or an agent), so I thought the best way to do that would be a baby book.

I loved the name Olivia, and Libby for short, and just combined different names till I got the perfect one.  (This also helps for any supporting characters as well...or if you happen to get a birthday gift in finding out that your pregnant...SURPRISE).

How do you find your character's names?  Do you need to borrow my baby book?

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on the pregnancy! And my character's names come to me in random ways. Usually when I outline I just name them Character A, Character B or Girl MC, Boy MC and so on. I'll be reading or watching TV and hear a name and think "Yes, that's the perfect name for my character." For secondary characters, when it comes time to naming them, I'll pick whatever is near, a piece of paper or book and skim it until I see the first name that pops up and then that is it.

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  2. Nicole, that's actually a good idea to pick secondary names! Never thought of that! Should I send you the baby book? lol.

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