Naming

[KamorianKandra he/him]

Hey guys,

I have recently started writing (fantasy novels) in my spare-time. 

I have found that I have alot of trouble naming characters and events.

Do you guys have a specific way of doing this, or is it just something you naturally do?

That would be amazing if you could help in any way.

Thanks alot

[Kobold King he/him]

I haven't named a lot of characters, but I do name a lot of alien races. My best method yet is simply pulling words from foreign languages and tweaking them slightly to make them sound cooler.

 

For instance, I've got a race of blue millipedes called the "Skordyr," which I got from the Icelandic word for "insect." I've also got a race with facial features reminiscent of a perpetual grin, and so I called them "Risu," derived from a Latin word meaning "smile."

 

I don't know if that helps, but it's all I have to offer.

[KamorianKandra he/him]

I haven't named a lot of characters, but I do name a lot of alien races. My best method yet is simply pulling words from foreign languages and tweaking them slightly to make them sound cooler.

 

For instance, I've got a race of blue millipedes called the "Skordyr," which I got from the Icelandic word for "insect." I've also got a race with facial features reminiscent of a perpetual grin, and so I called them "Risu," derived from a Latin word meaning "smile."

 

I don't know if that helps, but it's all I have to offer.

Actually, that's a really good idea.

Thanks.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

I haven't named a lot of characters, but I do name a lot of alien races. My best method yet is simply pulling words from foreign languages and tweaking them slightly to make them sound cooler.

 

For instance, I've got a race of blue millipedes called the "Skordyr," which I got from the Icelandic word for "insect." I've also got a race with facial features reminiscent of a perpetual grin, and so I called them "Risu," derived from a Latin word meaning "smile."

 

I don't know if that helps, but it's all I have to offer.

I do similar things. Other times, I'll take an existing name and tweak it just a bit until it sounds better for the character or setting.

[Surgebound Rainspren he/him]

The way I choose names is rather unusual. I close my eyes hit a random key on my keyboard look at it at whatever sound comes to my head on the end and then tweaking it til it resembles a name. Though if I get really stuck I use the bungee method of naming and choose a random noun, and for those moments of complete braindeadesness I use the crackdown naming convention, naming it what it is. Thats how I ended up with a poltergeist named "the ghost" and a team if engineers called "engineers"