James Barclay

[Wulfa_Coldheart]

How do you come up with character names? When I write fiction of any sorts the character names always prove to be a problem - even more so in fantasy where they have to sound fantasy like.

I remember in the early days of Cry of a Newborn, you mentioned names that where "real world" sounding and names that where fantasy sounding. I can't remember which came to be used and not.
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"You know what Jack Burton always says... what the hell?"

[Drizzt]

I know a few people with a few different methods. Some take existing names and maybe add a vowel or consonant or two, or substitute one for the other... 'ae' instead if 'i' and that kind of thing.

Others type radomly on a computer keyboard and see what combinations come up.

Then you can go deeper and if you, like James did, have various regions/countries etc you can give each their own indivual sounds or trends for names/place names.
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Pagan Music

[Parmenion]

i asked Gemmell about this once, he said he like to use hard sounding names they were more memorable, but he could also be random the name skilgannon comes from some one called Mr S Kilgannon, the Sk is also a hard sounding start to a name.

[James]

When I start a project, I'll sit down and make up loads of names that sound OK to me. Then I'll assign them to characters, towns, countries, whatever. But I'm never afriad to change them. I think you always know, deep down, if a name fits or not. If it nags at you, change it immediately. If you stumble over it when you read it back, change it.

But definitely having a good long list you can pick from works for me as it stops me having to pause in full flow if a new character shows up.

I like names that flow off the tongue... Herine Del Aglios, Hirad Coldheart, Felice Koroyan, Orin D'Allinnius. But I also like names that, often in an indefinable sense, speak masses about the character... Auum, Iliev, Gorian.

I do look at styles of name and try to group people from a certain culture within a naming style. The Raven elves all have a specific structure to their names though most shorten it. And in the Ascendants, people from Atreska, Gosland and Gestern for instance, had eastern European style names.... Dahnishev, Davarov, Mardov, Yuran etc, while Estorean and Caraducians sounded more Greek or Roman on the whole... Del Aglios, Vasselis, Kessian.

Hope that helps
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'A human with a hand outstretched in friendship carries the fangs of a taipan in his palm.' A TaiGethen saying.

[Parmenion]

Wow thats alot more involved than alot of authors i have spoken to...who often pluck from the ether

[TheJovialGnome]

But let's be honest, you wouldn't expect any less from this guy would you
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"Constant Vigilance!"

[Max Power]

A quick query on one of the character names - Vennegoor. Has this been 'stolen' from a certain Dutch footballer who plays for Celtic?!
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If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.