Last year I was on a panel at Bristolcon titled What’s in a Name? about fantasy and sci-fi names, how authors create them, and what their significance can be. I’ve been wanting to write a post on the topic ever since, since not only did the other panellists make some really interesting points, but in preparation for it I wrote notes on way more things than I would ever have time to mention, and I justified the indulgence by telling myself I’d turn it into a blog post later. Now that October is nearly upon us again, and the next Bristolcon looms, I thought I’d finally pull out those notes and dive a little deeper.
Of course, the type of names authors choose or create varies depending on the subgenre they’re writing. An epic fantasy set in a secondary world or space opera set in a far flung future will tend to be more inventive and experimental, whereas an urban fantasy set in the present day or a near-future sci-fi might stick more closely to real-world names and conventions.
All that considered, here are some interesting methods of finding or creating names that I’ve encountered in the books I’ve read, employed in my own writing, or heard authors say they used (including some of the authors on that panel):
10 ways fantasy and sci-fi authors find names
1. Gut feeling or “trusting the muse”
A surprising number of authors seem to just go with their gut or random inspiration and associations when it comes to names, plucking them from their subconscious or playing around with whatever sounds come to them. As the moderator of that panel I was on, T.O Munro, pointed out, one of the original names Tolkien toyed with for Bilbo in early drafts of the Hobbit was Bingo… yes, he could have been “Bingo Baggins”. It’s unclear where Tolkien’s original inspiration for this name came from, but I can’t help but feel he might have just pulled it out of his head as something that sounded fun together with Baggins.
2. Name lists, name sites, and name meanings
Unsurprisingly, another common way authors choose names is the same way expecting parents do, namely by looking through baby name sites or other online lists. This is often paired with a search for names that have particular meaning significant to the character or place they are naming. For example my own name, Nicola, means “victory” or “victory of the people”, which I always found fun, even if I don’t feel like a particularly victorious person. There are also random name generator sites out there, though I’ve not (yet) heard of an author actually using one. Presumably these days authors also ask AI chatbots to suggest names too.
3. Adapting and changing real world names
While the initial inspiration might come from one of the above methods, another path writers often take is adapting real world names by changing a few letters or syllables, or using them as a springboard to inspire something new. This seems particularly common in high fantasy novels, no doubt because real-world names can sound jarring in a secondary world, but totally unfamiliar names can sound equally jarring, so there is a natural gravitation toward this middle ground. I confess I have used this method myself – the main male character in my epic romantasy has a name I arrived at after liking names like Liam and Elias and trying to channel that vibe into something more new and unique.
4. Real places, street names, gravestones, and other local sources
Just as the Beatles did with Penny Lane, authors often draw names from the places they live or visit, or even just from old maps. For example, C.S. Lewis’s ‘Narnia’ came from seeing the town of Narni on a classical map of Italy and liking the sound of it. A lot of the names in Harry Potter can be found on headstones in Greyfriars churchyard in Edinburgh. A method I’ve personally used was to draw on the building names at my old university, since a lot of the inspiration for the book came from the time I spent working in admin at a language school there while studying, and it’s fun to have that nod to all the places I marched between while assisting teachers with tech issues and helping students find their classrooms.
5. Mythologies and historical epics
It is a time honoured tradition that even predates Tolkien for fantasy character and place names to be drawn from Greek, Norse, Roman, or other mythologies. This is unsurprising in books that also use these mythologies for plot or setting, such as the Percy Jackson series, but it can also be done symbolically when the connection is less obvious. One of my favourite examples of this is in Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory, where the main character is a part of a fascist, authoritarian cult that lives on ‘Gaea Station’. In a tradition that rings entirely true in its real-world parallels, this regime gives its women names like Valkyrie and Cleopatra, trying to associate itself with a great imagined past of human supremacy they wish to return to. I also love the titles of the emperors in the TV show Foundation: Emperor Dawn, Emperor Day and Emperor Dusk, which is a reference to the Riddle of the Sphinx, and perfectly symbolically reflects the roles of these characters.
6. Historical documents, records, and niche reference books
One of my fellow panellists, Penelope Hill, brought along an old Welsh book, her go-to for finding names for her work. I wish for the life of me that I could remember what it was called (this is the problem with waiting a year to get around to writing a post) but I thought this was a clever idea. I’m sure a lot of authors, especially of historical fantasy, find historic documents or books to be treasure troves of names, especially those relating to the setting of their work. I’ve personally used this method too – since the main character in my speculative thriller was born in the 90s in Australia, but has a French father, I wanted names that were popular in both France and Australia during this period. I searched online and shortlisted several, then polled by family members to see which they liked best.
7. Anagrams
Some authors and storytellers have created names using anagrams, hiding a word of significance in a character or place name by jumbling the letters. And some readers have, interestingly, searched for and found anagrams in character names that I’m not sure the original creators intended!
8. Words from other languages
Authors often draw on words from other languages to create names with a particular quality or sound, especially if trying to differentiate between cultures in their novels. The languages that have historically inspired fantasy names include Latin, Welsh, Old English, and Arabic, but fantasy novels increasingly draw on a wider range of human languages. It’s worth noting that this method often works best if the words are significantly adapted or changed, rather than being used directly, since what sounds otherworldly to an English speaker might just be a normal word to someone else. I’ve heard several reviewers say they’ve encountered words from their mother tongue in fantasy books that sounded strange or silly, and I experienced this myself once: I read a German word in an English sci-fi novel that just sounded a bit… obvious, and odd, now that I know the language.
9. Descriptive names
Some of my favourite names in fantasy books are not abstract personal or place names, but names that have an obvious or descriptive meaning significant to the world or characters. The same way you can have a real town name like Zweibrücken in Germany, which literally translates as “two bridges”, you can have a fantasy name like “Two Rivers” in Robert Jordan’s Eye of the World. A favourite example of this for me is in Becky Chambers’s Psalm for the Wild Built, where the robots name themselves after the first thing they notice after they are created, which is how you end up with names like Splendid Speckled Mosscap (the name of a mushroom), or Mosscap for short, Milton’s Millipede, and Two Foxes.
10. Monikers or nicknames
Akin to descriptive names, monikers or nicknames often come about in fantasy when authors choose not to name a character, or when a character doesn’t have a name. In Ursula Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan, the main character is often referred to as “the nameless one” or “Arha” which means “eaten” in the language of the novel, because she was stripped of her name for religious reasons. Sometimes a physical feature will be used in place of a character name, e.g. “the tall man” or “the girl in the red dress”. However, I know from experience that it can be difficult to name a character this way for a prolonged period of the story, because there are only so many times you can write “she” or “the woman” before you yearn for a more specific descriptor or name, and if you pick something that sounds odd, e.g. “the moustachioed gentleman” it can sound weird when repeated too many times.
In science fiction, alien characters are often given nicknames so that the humans have something to call them that can be pronounced with human vocal chords – e.g. Rocky in Project Hail Mary, Spanish Dancer in Embassytown, and the spiders Portia, Fabian, Bianca in Children of Time. Speaking of those spiders, Adrian Tchaikovsky, who was also on that names panel, answered a question I had been asking myself beforehand, namely where did those names come from? It turns out the genus of the jumping spider species they evolved from is called ‘portia’ which inspired the main spider’s name… and since Portia sounded Shakespearian to him, he decided on a whim to give the other spiders names of Shakespeare characters.
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Of course, the sources authors use for their naming inspirations are only one facet of the fascinating topic of names. During our panel discussion we also talked about naming systems, whether there are any “rules” or best practices when choosing names (e.g. how pronounceable and readable they should be), and common difficulties or pitfalls with name choice… but maybe I’ll save those for a future post.
Can you think of any naming methods I haven’t listed above? Or do you have a favourite name and “name origin story” of a fictional character or place? Feel free to share it in the comments.
