How (Not to) Pick Names for Your Characters

Why does it have to be so hard, though?

Hi, I’m Amber Eve — author of smalltown romantic comedies, and my long-running blog, Forever Amber. If you’d like to know more about me, start here. If you’d like to hear more from me, meanwhile, hit the button below (or ‘smash’ it, as my 7-year-old would say…)

Hey, remember address books? My grandparents had a particularly cool one, which had a rotary dial on the front, only with letters instead of numbers. And, to get to the page you wanted, you had to ‘dial’ the first letter of the person’s surname, at which point the book would magically open at the right page.

(My parents, meanwhile, had a green velvet-backed number, which I’ve just this second realised was obviously purchased along with my very first diary, —which I’ve immortalized here, on my blog — because it looked exactly the same as it. And here was I thinking ‘Santa’ brought me that diary!)

Anyway. These days I’m pretty sure no one still has an address book, except my parents, who have kept everything they’ve ever owned, and me, your friendly neighbourhood romance author, who bought one last month — not so she could remember people’s addresses or phone numbers (The very idea of me voluntarily phoning someone is hilarious, really. Isn’t that what email is for?), but in order to attempt to keep track of the various character names she’s used in her books.

She will stop speaking about herself in the 3rd person now.

Anyway, here it is:

When the book arrived, I sat down and carefully wrote down the names of every character who appears in my existing books, along with a few helpful notes, saying things like, “Susan’s dad,” or “appears briefly at the bus stop”.

I did this because naming characters — and then somehow keeping track of those characters and their names — is the bane of my author life, seriously. I’m not exaggerating when I say naming my actual child was easier.¹ Every so often, Terry (who reads my reviews so I don’t have to…) will say something like, “People seem to like Grace; maybe you should bring her back at some point?” and I’ll just be like, “Grace? Who dat? I have no recollection of this person.”

(She’s in The Accidental Actress, apparently. Love that for her.)

My memory for character names isn’t great, in other words (Which is actually quite surprising to me, because my memory for most other things is unsurpassed, people. Unsurpassed.) This is why I have two characters named ‘Summer’ in two separate books — and, to be totally honest, I don’t even particularly like the name ‘Summer’? I mean, it’s a perfectly nice name, don’t get me wrong, but I used it in Cool Girl Summer purely because I thought it would be fun to give the title a double meaning², and, when I wrote that book I had apparently completely forgotten that I’d already used the name for a side-character in The Accidental Actress (there’s a lot I don’t remember about The Accidental Actress, huh?), choosing it more or less at random. But now I think people who’ve read both books probably think I either have a weird obsession with the name ‘Summer’, or that it’s supposed to be the same person in both books, and … anyway, that’s why I bought my address book. Which I’m already thinking I might have to replace with some other kind of system, because what if all I can remember about a character is that ‘she was distantly related to Alfie’, but nothing else? How will my address book help me then?

Naming characters is hard, is what I’m trying to say. And it becomes even harder when you sit down to plan out your tenth (tenth!) book, and realise you’ve already used all of the names you like, and also approximately 582 other ones for side-characters you’ve long-since forgotten writing.

It’s a problem, really. And it’s a problem I’ve been attempting to tackle this very week, as I attempt to pick names I don’t hate, and haven’t used before, for the characters in what will eventually become Book # 10.

“I’m not keen on the main character’s name, by the way,” said Terry, who doesn’t like any of the names I choose for my characters, and always wants them to be called things like Tam, or ‘Boaby’, or something else that sounds like a character in Still Game. “It’s not Scottish enough.”

For reference, the character in question is called Ava. Which, no, is not particularly Scottish (she does have a Scottish surname, though; which isn’t something I normally get too hung up on either, tbh, but which is important in this case…), but…

“I’m literally called ‘Amber’?” I pointed out. “I, your Scottish wife, who was born and raised in Scotland, and who can trace her ancestry back through many generations of Scots?”

“‘Ava’ is the name of a movie star,” persisted Terry.

“Ava is the name of our next door neighbour,” I replied. “Who is, you know, Scottish?”

(I should probably point out here that my character is not in any way based on, or named after my 16-year-old neighbour. I’m not that weird…)

I went on to name as many people I could think of who are every bit as Scottish as I am, but who do not necessarily have names which reflect this fact. And it was … almost everyone, really. When I really thought about it, I’d say only a small percentage of the Scottish people I know have ‘traditional’ Scottish names like Shona, or Morag, or Hamish, or whatever it is people think of when they think of Scotland. Most of us have names that were popular in the UK in general (and probably in other English-speaking countries, too…) in whatever era we were born, so it’s not that weird to me that a character in a book would have a name that doesn’t necessarily reflect their heritage.

I mean, DOES it?

As it happens, though, I have been thinking about changing Ava’s name: not because it isn’t ‘Scottish’ enough, but simply because it doesn’t feel like the right name for her, somehow. And this is the most difficult, and elusive trick of all when it comes to character names: finding one that actually suits the character, so that, when you hear it, you think, “Aha! THAT’S her name! Of COURSE it is!”

That hasn’t happened yet in this case. In fact, every time I write her name, I think, “No, that’s not it.” (Although it DOES sound good with the MMCs name, though. GOD.)

So, it’s (possibly) back to the drawing board for me with this one; by which I mean ‘the back pages of my notebook, in which I ‘collect’ names, like a squirrel gathering nuts’. This list was started years ago now, when I wrote my first book, and I add to it every time I stumble across a name worth collecting. A few months ago, it was someone who commented on our street’s Facebook page, for instance. “Wow, what a beautiful name,” I thought, cursing the fact that I can’t possibly use it in its entirety without it being super-creepy, and making that person think I’m obsessed with them. Other times it’ll be a name that comes up in the opening/closing credits of a movie or TV show, or one I see on Instagram, or hear on the school run.

Those are my ‘special’ names, though; the ones that are strictly reserved for main characters who haven’t been invented yet. (One of my biggest author regrets: ‘wasting’ some of my favourite names on side characters rather than saving them for ‘best’…) When it comes to supporting characters, I usually resort to this little tool, which is an online name generator. I believe it actually draws the names from the electoral roll or something, I’m not sure. However it does it, though, it’s been responsible for more than a few of my secondary character names (although, having said that, I rarely use both of the names it suggests together…), and quite a few additions to the ‘special’ list, too.

My biggest problem when it comes to names, though — particularly women’s names — is that I tend to be drawn to ones that are very kind of ‘fanciful’ and sound like they might belong to a Victorian lady or fairytale princess, say. And I’m sure there are people in the world whose real names make them sound like they stepped straight out of a romance book, but, for some reason when you’re actually writing a romance book, it feels a bit weird to be all, “Araminta Lovelace and her best friend Violetta Snowe were waiting for a table at Nandos, when…”

(On the other hand, imagine getting to go through life with a name like ‘Araminta Lovelace’ or ‘Violetta Snowe’. As Max would say: LUCKY.)

Anyway, that’s been the story of my week, more or less. As well as naming these characters, I’ve also been busy working on the plot outline, and, because of this, I can confidently tell you I now know exactly what Atreyu felt like trying to drag Artax through the Swamp of Sadness in The Neverending Story, because, wow, I HATE this. It’s like the Neverending Plot Outline, seriously. Today, however, is the last day of term before the October break; I’d really, really like to be able to start writing this thing as soon as the holiday’s over, but because I’m not going to be able to get anything done during it (We’re not going anywhere, but will have Max here, plus quite a few of his friends most days, if past experience is anything to go by…) today is really my last chance to do it.

Er, I should probably get on with that, shouldn’t I?

I’m going to go do that. In the meantime, though, I would really, really appreciate it if you could comment below with your favourite names — both male and female, ideally — so I can shamelessly steal be inspired by them. Thank you!

1. Max was always going to be Max; it’s one of the few things Terry and I completely agreed on, and we’d agreed on it literally YEARS before we even considered the possibility of having a baby…

2. The main character in my NEXT book, meanwhile, was ALSO named in order to give the title a double-meaning, but then the title was changed, so now the character’s name has NO meaning at all, and is kind of boring without it, really? GAH.