Naomi Kelly's Blog
September 13, 2019
How I came up with my fantasy names
Naming characters can be tricky, especially in Fantasy writing. Of course you can use real life names, but if you're going to create an entirely new world where epic battles take place, the least you can do is give the MC a good name. No one wants to raise an army for the honour of King Bob the Boring. (Sorry to all the Bob's out there)
On the flip side, try not to have a name so obscure it takes away from the story. If your readers brain discombobulates every-time the see the characters name, it is going to draw them away from the story and take them out of the world you have spent so long creating. Certain authors, Sarah J. Maas tend to fall into this category. If I can't even mentally pronounce the name, let alone ship the characters IRL then we're in trouble.
So what did I do to avoid this? I tried to name my names sound as real as possible, or blended real names together.
For example, my character Edvan is a mix of the names Edwin and Ivan.
Another trick I used was to take a name people would be familiar with like Gerry and change the end syllable. In my sequel the name Gerry becomes Gerrin. This is a great way to keep you names grounded whilst exploring a magical world.
Families tend to follow some sort of naming pattern as well. Just look at the Kardashians . Try to implement a naming scheme that gives a sense of unity and history to the family. In "Trial by Obsidian", I have two brothers named Kol and Karnes, and their sons are called Edvan and Reuben. It is something the reader will probably never even notice, but both brothers start with K and are single syllables, where are their son's names are two syllables and end in n . I think small details like that help show connections and tiers within families, but I'm also a complete name-nerd.
( PSSS! There used to be a rule that you should never have characters with the same letter in your book as it would confuse the reader, but George R R Martin completely shattered that rule. And well, if readers can follow his elaborate amazing world, I'm sure they can tell different characters apart too!)
On the flip side, try not to have a name so obscure it takes away from the story. If your readers brain discombobulates every-time the see the characters name, it is going to draw them away from the story and take them out of the world you have spent so long creating. Certain authors,
So what did I do to avoid this? I tried to name my names sound as real as possible, or blended real names together.
For example, my character Edvan is a mix of the names Edwin and Ivan.
Another trick I used was to take a name people would be familiar with like Gerry and change the end syllable. In my sequel the name Gerry becomes Gerrin. This is a great way to keep you names grounded whilst exploring a magical world.
Families tend to follow some sort of naming pattern as well.
( PSSS! There used to be a rule that you should never have characters with the same letter in your book as it would confuse the reader, but George R R Martin completely shattered that rule. And well, if readers can follow his elaborate amazing world, I'm sure they can tell different characters apart too!)
