Author Resources: Names

When you're writing a book, one of the first things you need are character names. Why? Because you need to know who you're writing your story about.

I tend to start my notes with characters named B1, G1, B2, G2 etc, which stand for Boy 1, Girl 1, Boy 2 and Girl 2 and so on. Then, once I've got my basic plan of who the characters are going to be and what their personalities are, I can just do a full document replace. So, if I decide to call B1 Nathan, I can do a direct switch.

Once you get to that stage, you'll be looking at which names to use.

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Where do you find these names? There are a lot of choices:

Watch a movie. If you choose a foreign movie or one filmed in various countries, you can usually find some really good unusual, foreign names that will give your characters some authenticity. Or, just go for the super normal ones. But, don't just look at the characters or the actors who play them. Nope, your best bet for unusual names is to check out the cast and crew in the really tiny small print.

If you don't have time to watch a movie, try out the Internet Movie Database.

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Go through your old yearbook. Write up all names into Boy, Girl and Surname. Then, mix them up and you'll have a handful of names that you can use for characters. They're likely to be normal, every day names that will come in great for characters local to your area. If you're British and plotting your story in the same country, then the names from your yearbook are likely to be normal British names. If you're American and plotting your book in America, then your names will be normal American names.

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Think back to all your own favourite movie stars. The really amazing, 1920's, Golden Era of Hollywood stars. You'll often find that some of their stage names or real names won't be commonly used in our time. But, they can be great names for your characters.

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You can also search names by their specific country, if you have a foreign character you want to add 

to your story, or someone who has changed their name for whatever reason.

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Here are some generators you can use, online and offline:

Behind the Name

Fantasy Name Generator

Generate a Random Name

Donjon

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Here are some names from various films, yearbooks and movie stars that I've dug up for you:

Female

1. Greta
2. Lori
3. Jono
4. Sabine
5. Taea
6. Clotilde
7. Yolande
8. Mady
9. Valèrie
10. Monette
11. Marie-Laure
12. Karine
13. Valèriane
14. Pauline
15. Jona
16. Beatie
17. Pip
18. Fenella
19. Phyllida
20. Haydn

Male

1. Marion
2. Guillaume
3. Marton
4. Cameron
5. Brent
6. Fabian
7. Urbain
8. Serge
9. Ticky
10. Amaury
11. Geoffrey
12. Tristan
13. Raji
14. Aidan
15. Rolf
16. JJ
17. Art
18. Tariq
19. Ewan
20. Adie

Surnames

1. Makoare
2. Ulyatt
3. Dungey
4. Rhodes
5. Monaghan
6. Mortensen
7. Elsworth
8. Tautou
9. Cravotta
10. Csokas
11. Boyd
12. Nanty
13. Kassovitz
14. Bénichou
15. Pinon
16. Holgado
17. Babault
18. Zarrouk
19. Descoureaux
20. de Villeneuve