Book Names

I've a lot of ideas of the book I want to write the only problem is I got no "Name" Fantasy

So I was wondering how do all the writers come up with names?

Like Harry Potter, Robin Hood, Sonea and others. they have a "thing" like you remember them easy.

I am going to write a Fantasy/Middle Ages book
with elves, orcs and stuffs like that

and btw.
This is the first book i am going to write so it would be nice with some tips ^^

//JoccE

Srry for my English lucky i am writing the book in Swedish ^^

Well my first fantasy book title's a little boring, it's simply called 'Escaping Dreams' and my little 'gimmick' is that I write from dreams, and with the themes in the story the name works quite well.

'Nightswallow' is more a supernatural fiction, and it's had that name ever since it started as a short story. I don't know why that name seems to have just stuck like that - I pondered changing it but nothing else ever felt right.

There's the odd person who asks me if it's a porno :lol: but it's the name of my main character; Night Swallow. Which is also a bit of an odd name for a character, but then I've never been very 'ordinary' in my writing styles!

Hmmm what advice would I give you? Everyone writes differently so just do what feels comfortable for you and don't give up when you're stuck; take a couple of days to think about it and then go back to it and re-read what you've done; you'll come up with the answer eventually.

What made you want to start writing a fantasy book? Have you had the idea for a while or is it a mystery where the story is going to go?

I'm currently writing an Edinburgh crime thriller, it's called Grassmarket Blood. I'm really excited about it because it's like nothing I've ever done before and it also seems a lot more complicated than my previous stuff. It's more challenging for me but rewarding at the same time

As for the name of your book, I couldn't possibly help you with that! What does the story involve? Good luck with finding the right name :flowers:

JoccE said:

So I was wondering how do all the writers come up with names?

Like Harry Potter, Robin Hood, Sonea and others. they have a "thing" like you remember them easy.

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I don't think it's so much a case of the writer comes up with the name and that contributes to its success. If Rowling's books weren't hyped up, I'm sure we would be just saying Harry Potter, what a dull name! As for Robin Hood, since he's a quasi-historical person, that's his name.

I was just wondering how people that writing books comes up with all the names?
Not the Title. the names to the people

Oh right!

Pure imagination, on the most part for me :whistling:

With names like Xanther Aerts, Beth Elretha, Sam Cullen (Escaping Dreams), Night Swallow (Nightswallow) and now Stanley Hobbes, Marcella Dimitrieva and Fair Summer (Grassmarket Blood) I tend to go for the weirder ones!

JoccE said:

I was just wondering how people that writing books comes up with all the names?
Not the Title. the names to the people

Click to expand...

It depends on what they are trying to achieve, I suppose. Some will just go for something daft because it sounds alien to an English speaking readership. Others will try to forge names that hint at the character's personality. And then there's the amateurs who resort to silly name generators like this.

ye that what i dont want to do especially not for the main characters

My friend is a writer and during the election we volunteered as phone survayors. We went down a list of peoples names and called them one by one. (yeah, I know... I would have hung up on me, too.) So she kept noticing the interesting names and eventually made a two columned list on the back; first names then last names. Then at the end of the night she matched all the names together for the short stories she was going to have to write. I thought she was the biggest creep ever. lolz^_^

There was one lady, Grace Greek, who she called and apparently Grace Greek died like two days before, but was still on the list. It was awkward and she let out a nervous laugh, then the lady on the other end freaked out and cussed her out pretty bad. She later decided she would write a story named Grace greek is dead because that is bluntly how the lady on the other end of the phone put it. Some things just happen that way...

JoccE said:

I was just wondering how people that writing books comes up with all the names?
Not the Title. the names to the people

Click to expand...

I was just going through Orson Scott Card's website and he had this to say about naming characters:

"I choose names that will either suggest by sound or meaning something about a character"

I guess this is true for most well-known authors