Naming Things

• Start with a Placeholder. Names are a finer detail to the plot. Use names to distinguish character traits, but use names that make sense in the context of the world.

• Place names are a byproduct of languages, which are correlated to geographical region. As such, one technique for naming places is to interpolate between the feel of two different regions (i.e., the common particles used in each name)

• An effective title points to something solid that is actually in the story.

• What makes a bad fictional name?

  • Names that are flat, do not carry some form of personality proportional to the significance of that name or do not say something about the character’s personality, backstory or culture.
  • Names that are too “on the nose” and do not mesh or feel natural. Names are good if they feel natural
  • Names that are made unique by using obscure spellings or making them difficult to pronounce for no good reason. The exception to this is if the names are deliberately made like that because the individual is from a culture that is alien to us.

Links §

• Worldbuilding: How to Make Names that Don’t Suck

• Why most World Building Place Names Suck

• Names Index - for indices of names.

• Toponymy - for naming places

• McKee Ch. 18 - more on naming titles

• Linguistics