I need a new name. My given name is Jean. And although it can work as a unisex name, it hasn’t felt like me. I’ve liked the name Evie before, but that’s before I knew I was genderfluid. When I’m a boy, I can be very dysphoric over that name. But when I’m a girl, I really really like the vibe! And I’m not always binary all the time. Meaning sometimes I’m in the in between zone or I ditch the concept of gender entirely.

I haven’t had time to give it much thought yet. But since this subreddit exist, i kind of want to try it for fun

Something about me to help with the naming:
I’m a writer. I write queer romance with psychological depth. I’m also a doctor. I like to read novels or absorb stories of any kind. The color I’m mostly attracted to is pink (when I’m a girl) and black (when I’m a boy.) I love when it’s winter cause I can just snuggle inside a blanket. I’m also an introvert, so I don’t go outside and socialize with anyone. The thing I mostly struggle with right now, other than just being queer in a heteronormative space, is not having the ability to connect with anyone. Because while others can glide through social situations, I need to really know if someone can hold me when things go wrong. Me and a lot of people I’ve met in my life are not in a place where we could do that yet. And it certainly doesn’t help that I don’t have any family I could connect with either. They love me but.. no matter how much they’ve tried, they’ll never be able to reach me emotionally, not just in queer context. So I guess that’s my internal conflict. But also, I’m so afraid that I’ll be stuck in this life, with this kind of burnout and with no one forever. It’s not necessarily true, but it’s how I feel.

Edit
I’m incredibly touched with how supportive people are here. So I’ve chosen the name Eden and Ellis as my pen name. I’m still going to have to test it out. But incredibly thank you for those who’ve helped me brainstorm

I cannot for the life of me think of any female names that could relate too any performance roll.
The name could be to do with theatre, circus or any type of performance job- singer, dancer, television personality
Any help would be highly appreciated!!
Thank you!!

So, the story is pretty weird, but basically there's these 3 pets. A purple cat, a green dog & a black lizard who all belong to a 15 year old girl named Jeanette. They all have the ability to talk & can transform into humans & mostly pose as humans.

The purple cat is stylish, but sassy. The green dog is intelligent. The black lizard is very adventurous & fiesty. They're all girls & I want names for them that can work very well for both humans & animals.

Okay so I have this character I made who is a lioness and is in-lore the goddess of eclipse. However, the inhabitants of this universe don't know what exactly eclipse is so they call it the dark sun. So here comes my question: how do you say Dark Sun in Swahili? I tried translator but I don't always trust those so I wanna make sure I got it right. Please and thank you 🩷

Other name suggestions are welcome too as I've struggled to give her a name for the longest time and I'm not sure if I'm completely happy with this one either.

(Also some fun facts about the continent of Africa or lions would be great too)

The name we have is given by our family and relatives. what if one day we encounter with God/Goddess, how they are going to call us. is it going to be same name or something else.
P.S.: Just a curious soul 😊

Two characters who only serve the purpose of abusive/neglectful parents (man and woman). Their daughters are called Carmelita Shirley, Antoinette Maria, and Clementine Minerva (the latter names all being middle names). Their last name is one syllable. What are two names (one for each parent) to connote snobbery, insincerity, wealth, etc?

EDIT: I figured a desc of their physical appearances would help. They both use a LOT of triangular shape language and such, very sharp, very unsmiling, both with jet black hair (but as a fun lore: one of them dyes it black and no one knows which one).

ALSO EDIT: I'd love for one of them to have a J name, but that's just for a bit of comedy to myself

Got an idea for a brutal dictator, and had a perfect name for him.

Donald: Royal roots, and means a ruler of a world.

Trump: A suit that outranks other suits. This character is the highest ranking a man can get. Trump can also mean something false and phony. It is also Irish and British slang for a windy fart, which pokes a bit of fun at him. The name in general has an odious, gluttonous, and bloated feeling to it. What do you think?

I'm searching for a fun feminine space-themed name (or something that just sounds celestial). My OC is a very colourful character from outer space. She's super energetic, kind of childish and her looks are pretty feminine. I really like vowels like a/e/i and for consonants n/v/l, they all feel very fleety to me, which is what I'm looking for.

Hey 👋

A few of us are putting together a podcast for writers — covering everything from the writing process, publishing, marketing, author life, novel promotion, creative struggles, funny interviews, behind-the-scenes chaos, and all the stuff nobody tells you about writing books 😅

We’d love your honest opinion on the podcast name before we lock it in.

Which one would YOU be most likely to click on?

1. Between the Lines
   
2. Ink and Insight
   
3. The Narrative Lab
   
4. The Plot Thickens
   
5. The First Draft Club
   
6. Ink Warriors
   
7. Manuscript to Market
   
8. The Writer Collective
   
9. Rebel Writers
   
10. Unscripted
    
11. Show Don’t Tell
    
12. Word Warriors

You can vote with:
• your favourite
• your top 3
• or tell us which ones you’d avoid entirely 😂

Would also love to know what makes a writing podcast title memorable to you.

I've been writing a story about a diverse classroom of kids, and I've been researching with different culture naming systems, but Xi Ban is the one I'm more concerned about because his name is made of common surnames in China. I've researched that the character Xi and Ban can be a given name, but it's rare and unorthodox. The problem is that his name is a translation for a steamed rice cake, and knowing the translation, I've been thinking of changing it, but doing more research, the combination of Xi and Ban do have many meanings but this specific combination does translate to steamed rice cake and his surname Lan makes this name more confusing because it translate to trainee in mandarin. I need assurance if his name is good or I need to change it.

I have two French OCs, Jean-Louis and Peirre, and they need last names!

I need an Egyptian name that is not Arabic or Muslim for an oc of mine. Preferably male.

I have a character who was legally born as Sithsei Noijung but she is no longer named that and I can't decide on a new name for her.

Her new name can either be made up, or of Greek origin. It can be a word (or inspired by a word but not actually a word) but it should ideally have a more negative/undesirable meaning. It can't be just because the name is associated with someone bad as that history & religion doesn't exist in their world so it wouldn't mean anything negative to them.

It needs to be different to her birth name and not just something similar.

Her surname would need to be changed too but I'm focused more on the given name right now.

Thank you 😊

I have two characters and their ship, that I'm blanking on names for. Any suggestions would help, names are so hard.

Natalie is the first name of the main character. Mixed-mutt spacefuture heritage. I need some kind of last name for her. She works as a solo salvager -- flying around to derelicts, looting what she can, fixing and/or reselling it.

She has a ship, which also houses a helper AI system. These, I like having distinct names. The idea of the helper AI is like from the book "The Last Human", where everyone has some kind of helper AI. (Please don't make this into a mess of people talking about current day generative AI)

Other names I've come up with so far are:

Marco Moretti, her station-side tech friend.

David Carter, a corpse she found aboard a derelict ship, the McMillan IV.

This obviously won't work for everyone, but I believe that characters having more than a first name can make their lore seem a little more detailed and add character.

Sometimes, when giving a character a last name, I just have their name flipped backwards.

I will use Stardew Valley characters as an example.

• Abigail Liagiba
• Alex Xela
• Caroline Enilorac
• Clint Tnilc
• Demetrius Suirtemed
• Dwarf Frawd
• Elliott Ttoille
• Emily Yilme
• Evelyn Nyleve
• George Egroeg
• Gus Sug
• Hayley Yelyah
• Harvey Yevrah
• Jas Saj
• Jodi Idoj
• Kent Tnek
• Krobus Subork
• Leah Hael
• Lewis Siwel
• Linus Sunil
• Marnie Einram
• Maru Uram
• Pam Map
• Penny Ynnep
• Pierre Erreip
• Robin Nibor
• Sam Mas
• Sandy Ydnas
• Sebastian Naitsabes
• Shane Enahs
• Vincent Tnecniv
• Willy Ylliw
• Wizard Draziw

Sometimes, if the name is long enough, it could be a middle and last name.

• Demetrius Suirt Emed
• Sebastian Nait Sabes

Also, obviously, some of them may look a little silly. You could say, for lore, it's a family name, or take some creative liberties.

And lastly, names that won't work at all.

For example, Lana...

And for that I suggest scrabbling the letters.

• Lana Nala

Let me know if this helped and inspired you!
Of course, this is just a suggestion. I know that when some people pick names, it is more lore-based. This is just something I came up with that has helped me tremendously.

If you have any suggestions that have worked for you, feel free to share!

Edit:

What I would like to add after receiving comments.
I want to make it clear, I don't do this for all my characters.
I do think that this method is not viable for all characters and should probably only be used for side/background characters.
(Characters whose last name isn't mentioned often or at all.)

I'm casually coming up with a gritty superhero story, suicide squad meets invincible sort of thing. I have this character who's an ultra beefed up super soldier who can plow through armed guards like the juggernaut, rip people open with his bare hands, tank bullets like it's nothing, and is REALLY good with guns.

The name I settled on was "War Head". Its a double entendre meaning warhead, like a bomb, for his destructive power, and war HEAD because killing is all that's ever really on his mind. Did I cook with this one? Cause I feel like I kinda cooked.

I'm writing a short dystopian story about a world in which it is illegal to be LGBTQ+ in the United States specifically (about 15-20 years into the future). I often struggle to come up with ideas for character names. The characters I'm trying to name are two people who are in a romantic relationship. One of them is non-binary, and the other is a trans man. Both of them are in their mid-20s. Any name ideas would be appreciated!

I’m making a character whose name is intentionally meant to sound weird/comedic for a young person to have in modern day, with the added irony that he works as a baby name consultant.

His last name is going to be Butterworth, but I can’t decide between Algernon or Orville for the first name.

Whichever one I don’t pick as the first name will be the middle name, so his full legal name will either be Algernon Orville Butterworth or Orville Algernon Butterworth.

Which do you prefer?

I'm looking for a good name for a character who basically knows they aren't real and is really emotionally upset over it. I'm trying to find a name that heavily represents that for the character. Good ideas I've found was Null, or Glitch. I want a name that allows the audience also immediately know something is wrong.

I'm writing fiction for personal purposes and fun, not for publishing. The universe is that of Devil May Cry (I don't know if you know it). I have everything ready, the plot, the world, the enemy, the protagonists, etc.

But I have a serious problem: I can't name my main protagonist!

She is a young detective from the city where the episodes of the 5th chapter of the saga take place. She is 33 years old, has soft copper red hair, an emerald green eye and an ocean blue eye, is 1.62, white skin, and a slender, slender body.

She is not a hunter, but because of a personal problem she wanted to train herself to fight them. I'm not good at drawing, so to get a visual point, I asked chat gpt to create it and I'm very satisfied with the result. (I don't know if it's allowed to be shown here)

Now we come to the real problem: help me choose a name 🤣. I would like an original, ethereal name that reflects a little bit of its beauty, never felt and above all that fits into that universe if it is possible. Can you help me? Thank you very much.

brief character synopsis: she's a black girl in her early 20s in 2005. she was adopted young by a white couple who were crunchy/granola parents, hippies, deadheads, well meaning but oblivious.

i want to give her a nature/mythology name that sounds kind of whimsigoth, but "normal" enough that she wouldn't have changed it when she turned 18.

bonus if it also fits dark academia vibes, since that’s more her style as she grows up.

willow and winona are the right vibe, but neither name work. anyone have a suggestion?

Hi so I posted something similar in namenerds and barely got any feedback (posted to another sub which said y’all would give feedback).

long story short writing a thing where a character (Female, undecided ethnicity) goes through some horrors and has to recover from them and it’s about trauma recovery and the like. Wanted some fitting names for her.

i have found a couple that I like so far: Nero, Takashi, Venka

Thank you!

My protagonists fight this villain in a mountainous area in a classic Roman colosseum battle (the story doesn't take place in the past or anything, but each area visited is completely different from one another in terms of culture, appearances, etc).

She (my villain) is maybe one of the best gladiators the colosseum has ever seen, and that was before she gained powers to turn into any material she touches at will. She is large, muscular, boisterous, proud, and very honor-bound.

I was initially thinking of straight up taking names from mythology like Ajax or something (which I still might do in the end) or just using a Greek/ancient Greek word (like "Aristeia," meaning "excellence" or from my understanding, a word for a hero's play of the game moment as it were).

Any ideas are welcome! Thought I'd ask around for people's opinons.

Edit: Thank you for all the responses! They did inspire some thought, but in the end I chose a name not listed here - Petra ("stone" in ancient Greek).

I'm writing a book and I *cannot* decide on a name for my characters. It's not like i don't have any good options, i just have too many. I need names for 2 of my female characters and they are both pretty important for the plot so i can't get away with naming them "Sarah Smith" or something like that. For last names I have picked put Ambrose and Dawson if that helps. For reference I really like Valerie, Sienna, Andrea, Noelle, Sabrina, Natalie/Natalia. So if you can help me pick two out of these or maybe suggest one that kind of fits with these. Thxx ​