Of course, the biggest part of a character is their name. And with a wrong one, it can ruin the entire effect of the character.

Great character names, bad character names, character names you've made up. If you want a name rated.

I'll go first.

I had a character named Dr. Patience Hertz in an RP once. He was basically called Dr. Hertz, which is kind of an ironic name. I liked the name and the character, because he was as crazy as his name seemed to imply.

Continue!

my favorite name for one of my characters in a story ever was Evan Vargas.
He was kind of little peaceful man, not really afraid of anything, covered in scars which he got from studying for his surgery degree on himself.
also vargas is the last name of the famous edgar vargas from jthm~

my characters names:

Noah
Sheionti
Eden
Toshihirio
Margee
Shento
Dameion
Zigz
Pyralis
Zenzi
Caw
Tetanaus
Yasashi
Zetsumei

thats all i can think of xD french names have always striked my fancy too

hummmm all my names for my OC's have meaning for the most part ^^

A'iel Van Roarke - van roarke means "descendant of rulers" and this char is essentially the future ruler of her people
Verdigris - means "green", and this char is strongly tied to the forest
Cypress Donahue - means "Swaying fighter" and he fights with a rapier.. fencing tend to sway on the balls of their feet
Bijou Beijo- means "jewel kissed" and shes a very exotic char covered in birghtly hued scales.

Zephyr Lee -- Zephyr is little breeze. It's also the last word in several sat vocab books, I believe. x3
Rising Grove -- Um. I just like it. o.0
Janel - Combination of Daniel and Josh, but Jane is a teased-about nickname of his. xD
Adel -- nickname is Addy. Yup.
Affinity -- Means connection. Like, friendship-ish. I like the world. xD

Iono if a name is that important, though. I mean, if I have a girl named Cassandra, I'd have her have horrible luck, like Cassandra of the Trojan Wars, but other than that I'm not too sure.

One of my characters, a Kingdom Hearts Original Character is Athena Syntyche.

Athena is the goddess of wisdom, but my character is very unsure of herself, and relies a lot on her friend Lexi. He's a nobody, as implied by the "x" in his name. Which is funny since I was planning on that. *cough*

Syntyche means common fate. This is also sort of odd considering she basically ditches her home world, yet finds the same sort of chaos and beauty in every place that she travels to. Essentially, the events of her war-torn world is reenacted in some form every way she goes, the common fate of all people.


I then have the twins, Blake and Phoenix Fidel.

Fidel means faithful, or faith.
Blake means black, and Phoenix means dark red.
These are the main colours of the twins. Phoenix has black hair with red highlights, while her older brother has dark red hair with black highlights (which looks really hot). The two of them have an intensely strong bond, however, there's no trust, or faith in each other.

- sapphire

I love reading about characters' names. Sometimes I'll try to integrate meaning into my characters' names. For instance, my fire elemental girl is named Eithne which means "Little Fire." And my water elemental is named Nen, which means "Ancient Waters." But then, in the same story, I have another fire elemental named Tamryn and an air elemental named Vaughn, neither of which the meanings have anything to do with the element!

I've had stories where I start out with a name for a character, but then realize it just doesn't work for them. And I seem to like combining real, common names with not-so-common, but not-so-far-out sounding names for my stories. So in my main novel, I've got a Ryan, Rosanna, David, Clara, Lawrence, and Jacob, but then I also have a Cayden, Evalie, and Tani. My story, while being fantasy, is in more of a historic setting, though not on our earth, but in a world very similar - perhaps parallel.

So, many times I try to do the meaning thing, but a lot of the time, in the end, it doesn't always work out that way.

I like to come up with a name first, then build the character around it... but only when a name sounds particularly great. If it's something as standard as John then, you know, no need to play around. John is, like, a miner from Wales. Wow. Anyway, yeah, like Mantis - I thought it was a good (nick)name for a character and built up a young woman around that basis.

Sometimes I like those characters enough to keep them, but sometimes they seem too forced, so I scrap them. Good fun. It passes the time, if nothing else. :]

Alot of my characters only use a single name, or a nickname, My favorate to use is Valerius, that or Draven, but it totally depends what i'm useng the charatcer for what the name should be like, don't you think?

I'm usually the one people come to when they need a new mule or character named. :)

I love spending time going through google sites to try and find names and meanings that noone else has found :p

I've just named a few new pets on subeta for myself based on how they look - or will look. Its the same with RL pets. They always get a name based on personality or looks.

However - unusually for me, I have been writing a book - and the names of the characters in there have come off the top of my head! There is no meaning behind the names - or at least none that I have put there.

Maybe from browsing all of those sites some names have rubbed off on me - and going from character development,I've come up with names that give the right sound to the name. :p

Hmmm~ My favorite name I've ever given a character was Namki. He's a total spastic idiot and I think his name accurately reflects that. XD I wanted a name that sounded tough yet childish at the same time, and Namki seemed to be a good option.

A semi protagonist and one of the main characters on the maybe "good" side is Brian West in a story I'm doign, it's sorta like, a super hero's covername, and he's the son fo a detective, and the "brains" behind his dad.
ANotehr main char is Danger, she is an eccentric character, hyper and zoomy everywhere, book obsessed, has thousdands upon thousands of books (thin kf the main char from R ead or Die), she is a sister or alter ego of the temporary "bad guy"
Great Thief Maria, the bad guy, book burner(suppossedly), thief of all thigns valuable, lithlier than a cat... jsut.. a sorta badass character that if you saw trhem in action o nthe big screen, you'd be rooting for them to escape jsut so the story would continue on.. :oops:

I've got a character named XXVII. Yep, the number 27 in Roman Numerals. His real name is Hadrian Lastec (yes, Hadrian like the wall-building Roman emperor), but... long story short, he changed his name. Don't want to bore anyone with the explanation.

I've also got three siblings named after three of the moons of the planet Jupiter: Sinope, Metis, and Adrastea. They're all named after [female] lovers of Zeus/Jupiter in Greek/Roman mythology, but Sinope and Metis are both male... XD Ah well.

Not so much for character, but I have aspirations to become a published author and have thought I would love to use a pen name with the first name "Alex" as it is not necessarily a name attributed to either sex.
I know Mark Twain said to write what you know, and sometimes I forget that just living where I do (Las Vegas, NV, USA) is actually a source of unique stories and perspectives for most of the world.

As far as a character, I have often imagined writing about a woman named "Lydia". I would appreciate knowing any impressions or images that name brings to mind for people.

Ah. I peruse through baby names after I'm done thinking up some basic characteristics of my characters, and I just choose the ones that sounds like it could work with them. <3 Then they suddenly develop with more complexing attributes in accordance to their names.

xD Ehehe, Dr. Hertz! That's so cute. x'D I have a doctor character too, and his name is Doctor Baker. I named him after a psychiatrist I had whose last name meant 'Bread Maker'. Mmyah. <3 I love that doctor. T_T

I don't think names are particularily as important as their personalities. I mean, a some people have names that don't seem to match them at all, y'know? Not necessarily the exact opposite of the meaning of their name, because that would still have a sort of relation with it-- just a name that doesn't fit at all.

I have a character(all in the stories I write) named:

In the story Korouko:
-Korouko
-Jenko(Korouko's gf)
-Senki(Jenko's little sister)

In the story the greatest point of view:
-Ryan Tatoris
-Sandro Tatoris(Ryan's older borther)
-Amelia(Ryan's gf)

My DBZ character:
-Kema
and so many more

Hm, I've had a couple of names that I've really liked:
Aeolian
Anshi
Atalan
Sioux
Kuris
Ashu
... Just to name a few.

After too much Sailor Moon and Harry Potter fanfiction, where every name *has* to have a meaning, I started to dislike giving people names based on what they mean.

Nowadays, I'm actually more likely to use a random number generator and a list of names I got from a friend to find a name for somebody. xD

There are a few exceptions to that, though. One of my most favorite characters is named Sylv, and I particularly chose that name for him. And my username, Temmon, is a name that I came up with myself. Actually it came to me in a dream.

Plus I don't like using particularly exotic names, as I set most of my stories in a more modern day world they don't tend to fit particularly well with a really outlandish nomiker.

I usually enter random words into a Swahili translator, I roleplay in a Lion King based thread on Gaia online, so I've got characters named 'Toe' because I like the way the words look/flow.

Someone else likes using Swahili! lol...I thought I was the only one! I used to look up words in Swahili for RP character purposes! In one, I had a horse named Farasi, which is Swahili for "horse." Yeah, I love the way the words flow in that language, though they don't always fit my purposes.

I like the name Sandra thus it's no wonder why I picked it as a username and why it is also the name of my Original Character. As to why I like it strangely enough my reason is that I am an RPG game, if your wondering what that has to do with me liking the name Sandra. It's because when I like a video game I usually go to websites a look for biographies and we all know some websites have fanart well I once searched for the biographies of final fantasy eight characters in the fanart section their was a really nice (and I do mean nice) fanart of Squall summoning a large western dragon (I think the dragon is Buhamut since he is the only western dragon, the drawing kinda confused me a bit since I know for a fact that Buhamut is blue not purple like in the said fan art.) anyway on the lower left corner of that fanart was the name Sanadara I am guessing that was the name of the artist or something. So anyway after awhile I took the name Sandra from that name in honor of the first RPG game I had ever played Final Fantasy Eight.

The second name I liked was Raven and since the name Raven is for both guy and girl. I gave it to another original character. And for the sake of annoying other people I named his half-older brother Lucifer (not the devil.) and for Irony I made Lucifer the son of Life. XD

Other Names I ended up liking is:

Arashi - Japanese for storm
Seinna
Xandria
Sapphire
Draco - I know it's a boy's name but it means dragon in some language that I forgot. And I love dragons~
Erika
Azmaria
Kira
Kisara
Aviona
Vira
Satsuki
Chidori
Ressha

and all those names ended up becoming the names of other original characters. Or the name of people who live in my head (that includes Sandra, Raven, and Lucifer)

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Character Names? Oh my, yea I have so many OC and other characters from other places that are just crazy. Most of them have some type of Japanese origin, or were made up by my crazy mind. But thats totally fine. Some I just take out letters of words and put them together, which is interesting too.

I have too many to list. :lol:

I have three characters with the name Rush, who all live in separate universes. They are completely different.

I like simple names, or names that sound good.

Orpheus is the name of a blind monk I have. I want to use Mateus for him too. I think that was a name of a Final Fantasy summon, but I don't care. It fits him. x3

Card is the name of a manager of a racing team who is really strict about rules. I'm not quite sure about how I came up with this one, but it might be because when someone fouls in soccer they get a 'card' for breaking the rules.

I like the name Bane, the name of a docile minotaur creature I made. ;3

Wick is the name of an impulsive space racer. A wick is the piece of a candle that burns. I just thought it'd sound nice as a name.

Larnisse is the name of a sister of Wick. Her name sounds vaguely French to me, and I think it fits her sense of style and personality.

Just to name a few that I especially like. Sometimes I take two words and randomly take letters out of them to make a name. :3

I'm always so bad at coming up with names. It always takes me forever to create my characters names, I'm always looking for the perfect one.

for one of my soon to be OC, (I haven't really made her yet), I was thinking of the name Silace or Silas, (for different types of spelling.) I don't really know where I got it from, it just kind of came to me.