Writing.Com General Discussion

I just make stuff up. But I also play RPGs, so I'd gotten used to making up D&D character names on the fly.

For real world names, I'll google up foreign names and usually there will be glossaries of name/meanings which is helpful for some characters.


I will say, the hardest name I had to figure out was the one for my protagonist in the series of stories I'm writing. Everybody else's name just popped out.

If I was naming your hero, here's what I'd need to know to better decide:

What kind of setting is this for?
What gender?
What nationality/ethnicity/race/species?
What job/role are they in?
What personality traits do they have?

The way I'd name an Orc would be different from an Elf (assuming my vision of both races in a setting).

Steve's idea to look up a personality trait works for "real world" as well. If you are making a hispanic stubborn police sargeant, Stinado makes sense as a last name on cultural and name-meaning fronts.