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Character Naming Resources
stephmcgee
Posted: Monday, March 21, 2011 11:04 PM
Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 244


http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php

Those are two of my favorites.  Seventh Sanctum has a bunch of generators that can help you come up with names for ships, taverns, etc. in addition to the character names.

There are also a myriad of baby name sites where you can search by gender, nationality, meaning, etc.  My favorites of those follow.

http://www.babycenter.com/baby-names
http://www.babynames.com/
http://www.parents.com/baby-names/

Danielle Bowers
Posted: Monday, March 28, 2011 3:27 PM
Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279


http://baby-names.familyeducation.com/
stephmcgee
Posted: Sunday, April 3, 2011 11:47 PM
Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 244


Thanks!

Here's another one. This one generates first and last names together so it's pretty fun.

http://thenamegenerator.com
megan carpenter
Posted: Saturday, April 9, 2011 12:49 PM
Joined: 4/3/2011
Posts: 2


These are exactly what I needed this morning. Thanks for sharing them!
Marcie
Posted: Monday, April 11, 2011 3:14 PM
Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 102


My go to sites for names are:

Popular Baby Names by Year
http://www.babiesonline.com/articles/babynames/most-popular.asp
http://www.babycenter.com/baby-names

To learn meaning and culture
http://www.babynames.com
http://surnames.behindthename.com/

To make up a name
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
http://translate.google.com/#

If I have no idea, or the name doesn't matter to me, Seventh Sanctum
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
stephmcgee
Posted: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 9:10 PM
Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 244


Thanks for those, Marcie. I'll have to check those out next time. Love Seventh Sanctum. One of my go-to naming sources.
stephmcgee
Posted: Sunday, September 4, 2011 3:18 PM
Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 244


Here's one I just saw tweeted under the #bookcountry hashtag:

http://oobleck.org/steam/

It's a Victorian/Steampunk name generator. You can select which gender, which class in society, how many to generate, and for some names whether to show extensions, such as initials.
MariAdkins
Posted: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 10:20 PM
Because I write about a specific part of America, I use one of their local (about 15 years old) telephone directories. Mix and match first and last names.

NoellePierce
Posted: Thursday, August 8, 2013 12:38 PM
Joined: 3/14/2011
Posts: 226


I've recently started naming walk-on characters after a celebrity they look like "Felicia" for a character who looks like Felicia Day or "Eva" for an Eva Mendes lookalike. I wouldn't do it for my MCs, because I have some strong beliefs in names needing to mean something for the main and secondary characters, but for a taxi driver (if he must) have a name, it might be "John" for John Travolta.
Lucy Silag
Posted: Thursday, August 8, 2013 1:05 PM
Joined: 6/7/2013
Posts: 1356


@Noelle--this is too great--I love it! It sounds like it makes it easier to remember what the heck you named those walk-on characters, too (I struggle with that). happy

 

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