Resources for Naming Your Characters

Goal: Learn about some resources for naming your dolls and/or characters. (This is a text-heavy tutorial. Read only if interested. ;)

Why? Many doll-makers name their dolls. It's a nice artistic little touch and it adds a bit of extra personality. I have always been very interested in names, so I know a lot about them and never have any trouble finding or inventing a suitable name, but this doesn't come easily to everyone (it takes a little practice, I think - I've been practicing for years, really). I'm always seeing someone saying something like "I've just made this doll and I don't know what to name her yet" or "this is my new character, I haven't decided on her name".

This tutorial is intended to help someone in that situation. :) It doesn't have to be for a doll, of course - you could use these resources to name your roleplaying character or a character in your story, or even just for fun!

Name Meaning Resources

Behind the Name is definitely the site you want if you are interested in names with meaning! You can also look up names from an enormous array of cultures. The search is very powerful and easy to use and there are even popularity lists to help you to find (or avoid) "trendy" names. For stories set in your own world, you might want to invent your own Naming Language. The folks at Langmaker have an in-depth tutorial for that.

Baby Name Resources

• You can easily pick up a cheap baby name book in the book aisle at your local supermarket. It's something fun to leaf through while you are away from your computer. ;) If you live at home and have younger siblings, there is very likely already one around the house! (Girls, I recommend telling your parents why you are looking for one. ;)
• Babynamer.com presents a large number of names with lots of information. You can read user comments on how various names are perceived and find lists of teasing nicknames, for example.

Generators

The Page of Generators is your friend. Check under Characters > Fantasy Name Generator for a very nice generator that will produce names in a huge variety of styles. There is also a wide selection of specialty name generators, as well as generators for pretty much anything you can imagine. (A lot of fun to play with, too.) My own Naming Syllable Generator may or may not be useful for anyone other than me, but I think it's a lot of fun. It gives you bits and pieces to get you started and then your own creativity can do the rest. :) The Forest of Shadows-style Name Generator is good for slightly-exotic looking general-purpose fantasy names. It's designed to use our own spelling conventions and such, so it's mostly useful to us, but you might find it fun,too. The results are fairly reliable.

Special Interest

Here are some resources for specific types of names that are either a) highly in demand (based on my observations) or else b) I had a really good idea for that particular category. If you have any better ideas, any really-really-really good resources that you link should be listed here, or any type of name you could really use help with, let me know and I'll see what I can do. :)

Note that I am not particulary interested in "give your first and last name and we will give you your pseudo-Elvish[or whatever] name" generators. They are fun toys, but not really good for practical use.

	Tolkien Elvish: The Quenya Lapseparma ("Quenya Babybook") is the place to go. If you are more interested in naming than in studying Quenya, it is much better to pull names from a huge list of meaning-translations than it is to try to piece them together yourself. Note, however, that unless your Elven character lives in Valinor, he or she would definitely be going by a name that is Sindarin, not Quenya. ("Galadriel" is Sindarin.) It's a problem with no easy solution.
	Harry Potter: The general feel is sort of British with some elements from mythology thrown in for good measure. Try going to Behind the Name's random name generator and checking "English" and also "Mythology" and "Ancient". You can also get entertaining potential surnames by checking "Witch" (only). Americans trying to sound British might also be interested in a few top 100 names lists from the area. (Note: This will also more or less work for Matrix names. It's the sprinkling of terms from mythology that does it.)
	Pirates: The Pirate Hold has an enormous list of historical pirates under "Roster", if you're trying to get names that feel accurate. If you're not, I'm sure you can already list at least three pirate name generators.
	Star Wars: Try the Star Wars Random Name Generator. Pretty good stuff. Pulls from actual names (so you get no nonsense results) with a database of something like nine million combinations.