Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm sure I'm not the only one here that likes the characters in their stories to have cool, exotic, unusual and even funky names. I mean, you can only call so many characters Sarah in a Sci-fi story. So I propse this:

How many of you have lists of unique names for characters for your stories? Where do you draw the inspiration for these names? And do you know any sites that offer lists of names for other writers? Feel free to share your names and to help people with character names.

PLEASE!!!Do not use a name if you have not asked. Be courteous and ask.

Hm... I don't do anything fancy or intelligent like that, I just will randomly come up with a name I think sounds interesting, I have no idea how, and write it down before I forget, and find someplave to use it eventually. I am horrible with names, but while playing gaia, I think I've gotten good at making my own fantasy names. But I still lack names for my mecha story... anyway, I'll just drop down a list of some names I use without specifying which names are for what, tell me what you think.
Senraiel, Kaiel of Sen'Maril, Levaticus, Rivven Dilys, Rainneth, Aerim Whispe, Edrixe R. Koyne, Marin, Tabris, Kiran, Chemia, Richardo, Daniem, Talivar.

There are plenty of others, but that's all I know off the top of my head. Any opinions/suggestions?

I read a series of books by him, but I can't remember the names now. Some things I thought were pleasent more than appropriate in the books, but a friend had loved them so I read what was at the library. Makes me wonder about him, or at least his sense of humor...
Anyway, Edrixe Robert Koyne is actually a name in my mecha novel, but the rest are for fantasy scenarios/roleplays. I like to end names with -el in many cases, sometimes with actual reason and sometimes without. Ex: Senraiel is an angel, and if you look up the names of angels, every single one except Lucifer (in the bible at least) has a name ending with -el, and there's a reason for it, but I can't remember. Kaiel on the other hand, I just thought it sounded like a good name for a young nobleman in a fantasy story.

I usually fall back on babynames.com, just because it archives a lot of names. If I know I want a certain sound to it, I use the search engine - which usually works really well and gives me a satisfactory name.

I've also just made a list to keep handy of about a page-ful that I like. I'm not so good at making up names, but sometimes it comes to me. 3nodding

My main characters for a story, all japanese derived names.

Keiichi : Sanaka : Ryuga :

And just some random names.

Shilen : Ranto : Neminra : Be'ankro [beh-ahn-krow] : Dinsal : Calnul :
Rodra : Meldral : Colensu : Nurad'rek : Yutarfes : Vendrick :

note: all of these names use japanese/ spanish vowels. I - ee: E - eh: O - oh: U - yu: A - ah.

Where I work, I see the names of hundreds of customers a day in our paperwork. The most interesting, exotic, beautiful, and strange names can be found. Open a phone book and read a page. You'd be surprised how many great character names you can find from actual people. Obviously, you probably shouldn't use someone's actual full name, though. My personal favorite name I found, used in a novel of mine, was Maldotha.

I guess that's a great stress reliever.

Hmm... My names are usually a bit unusual, but not enough to be exotic, I think. I've had characters named Eris, Rivera, Coilean, Adelpha, and currently ones named Aithne (AKA Keza) and Zona...

I usually go to www.parenthood.com and click on their Baby Names section. It's pretty reliable for both common and creative names. smile