BellaOnline Forums Career Fiction Writing Naming your characters

How do you come up with names for your characters? Do they just come to you and seem right immediately? Or do you struggle through baby books hunting for the right name?

Have you ever chosen a name for a character, and then met a person with that name? My husband has the same name that one of my characters used to have - I changed it very quickly and it actually now feels strange to call that character by his old name.

You can read my article on naming characters here.

I get my names from various places. Sometimes they just pop into my head when writing. SOmetimes I hear or see names I like and I jot them down. In one story I started, I described the character out loud to my fiance' and asked him what her name should be. So I have a character that my fiance' named. Have to remember to thank him somewhere at the beginning of that novel when it gets published LOL

LOL I bet he's chuffed you used the name he chose. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />