Names Archives - The Steve Laube Agency

What’s in a Name?

It’s time to start that great novel you’ve been wanting to write for years. You have the story in mind and even the names of the main characters.

But what about the other bit players in your story? What names do you give them?

Some authors use relatives or childhood friends as fodder for ideas. Some just randomly choose names from a baby name book. Novelists know that names can often present themselves as part of the characters!

What if there was a simple website that could help you with the task? Look no further. The “Name Generator” is available for your use, and it’s free. Go to the web site (click here), and bookmark it for later use.

You can pick nationality, religious background, year of birth, gender, and even whether they are a human or a zombie! (Only a computer knows the name of a zombie!!)

I put the following criteria into the mix:
male (gender)
Mr. (title)
human (flavour)
virtuous (type of character)
1972 (birth year)
American (nationality)
British and Russian (parents’ nationalities)
Christian (religious background)
Then prioritized under “Cornish, British, Russian, Scottish.”

Then clicked a button and received the following results:
Mr. David Ball
Mr. James Stevens (Jamie)
Mr. Michael Wilkins (Mickey)
Mr. Timothy Roberts
Mr. Joseph Wells (Joey)
Mr. John Hill (Jax)
Mr. Thomas Parks
Mr. Mark Peterson
Mr. Daniel Watts
Mr. Matthew Fields

I think Jax should make an appearance in your novel as a car mechanic. 🙂

Did you notice that every first name in that list is the name of a person in the Bible?

At the bottom of the results page, I noticed a bunch of other name-generator functions this site can offer. Everything from a band name to names of foods. (I tried “meat and bacon,” and one answer for a main meal was bacon and cheese risotto!)

If you want to have some fun this week, play around with it. Change the nationalities, the religious backgrounds, the surnames, and more.

You might end up naming every person in the stadium at an old University of Michigan football game (100,000 strong)!

Let us know in the comments below the favorite name you found using this site.

Any Name Will Do?

Have you ever been asked by an editor to change a character’s name in your novel? If so, I promise you are not alone. It happened to me too. One thing I used to like about writing books is that I could christen my characters with names I thought whimsical but my husband would have never let us call our children. But a writer still has to be careful.

Same Syllables

Awhile back, I ran into an …