Writer's Resource: Advanced Character Name Tools

As a follow-up to Stacy's post about choosing character names by popularity, I wanted to share one of my favorite new tools. I've posted about the Baby Name Wizard website before, but they recently made their advanced name finder tools free (you just have to register).

My favorite is the Expert Name Finder. It lets you select a whole bunch of different parameters to narrow down your name choices.

Here's an example using my current work-in-progress. For the main character, I wanted a boy's name that was fairly common in the US, and one that suggested intelligence and youth. I also didn't want it to start with the letters S, H, or L, since I have character names starting with each of those letters already.

Here's what my search looked like:

And here are my results:

This gives me lots of names to choose from. I especially like Aaron, Quinn, and Terrence for this character.

The advanced features also include a name matchmaker, where you can enter in a name you like and it will give you similar suggestions, and a neat tool called NameVoyager that gives popularity graphs, similar to the ones Stacy mentioned in her post.

With these tools, naming characters is a snap!

Writer's Resource: Character Names

I was really happy to receive a compliment recently on the character names in my WIP. I spent quite a bit of time on those names, so it was great to hear someone thought they worked well for the story.

I spent a LOT of time on the names.

It's not easy to come up with names, especially if you have a large cast of characters. Here are a few resources for character names you may not have considered:

• Random Name Generator. Sometimes you don't realize a name works perfectly until you see it written down. Try Behind the Name, which lets you specify ethnicity, gender, and number of names; the Fantasy Name Generator, which leans toward unique names and has options like "vowel heavy" names and "names with apostrophes"; and the Fake Name Generator, which not only comes up with a name--it gives your fictional character a whole identity, complete with a birthdate, blood type, and mother's maiden name!

• Baby name websites. I like Baby Name Wizards' advanced name finder, which gives you options like how common the name is and the first letter.

• The US Social Security Office's Baby Name Popularity List. You can input a year (back to the 1880s!) and it will give you a list of the most popular names in the US from that year. Don't forget, if you're naming an adult character, you'll want to look at the names that were popular during the year of his or her birth, not currently popular names.

It's worth taking the time to get your characters' names exactly right. The best names are unique and fit the characters well. Would Atticus Finch, Scarlett O'Hara, Sherlock Holmes, or Blanche DuBois be as memorable with different names?