How I Name My Characters (And Why It Takes Forever)

I have a confession. I have spent more time choosing character names than I have spent on some entire chapters. I am not proud of it. But I am not sorry either.

A name is the first thing a reader learns about a character. Before they know what the character looks like, what they want, what they fear, they know their name. And that name has to do work. It has to carry weight. It has to sound like the person it belongs to.

My process is chaotic and I will not pretend otherwise. I keep a running document on my phone called “Names That Haunt Me.” It is exactly what it sounds like. Every time I hear a name that stops me in my tracks, whether it is in a coffee shop or a news article or a cemetery, I write it down. Some of those names have been sitting in that document for years, waiting for the right character to claim them.

For the Kings of Ridgeview, I needed names that sounded like athletes but also like people you would follow into a fire. Names with weight and swagger and just enough softness to hint at the vulnerability underneath. I went through hundreds of combinations. First names, last names, nicknames. I needed them to sound right together because these five guys are a unit. Their names had to feel like a lineup. Like a starting roster. Like a brotherhood.

The Romano family was different. Those names had to feel like family. Like you could hear a mother yelling them across a kitchen. Like they belonged on a mailbox in a small town. I wanted warmth and history and the kind of familiarity that makes you feel like you already know these people before you have read a single page.

For the gods in Daughters of the Drowned, I went in the opposite direction. Those names had to feel ancient and alien and a little bit wrong in your mouth. Like words from a language that was never meant to be spoken by humans. I researched dead languages, mythology, and phonetic patterns that create unease. A god's name should feel like a warning.

The heroines are the hardest to name. Always. Because a heroine's name has to do the most complex work. It has to be strong without being aggressive. Memorable without being theatrical. It has to sound like someone you would want to be friends with and someone you would be a little afraid of. It has to fit in the world of the story while also standing apart from it.

I test names by writing dialogue with them. If a name does not sound right in a whispered confession at two in the morning, it is wrong. If it does not sound right being screamed across a football field, it is wrong. If it does not look right on a page, sitting alone in a paragraph, carrying the weight of a revelation, it is wrong.

Sometimes I change a character's name halfway through a draft and everything clicks into place. The scenes that were not working suddenly work. The dialogue that felt stiff suddenly flows. It is like the character was waiting for me to call them by their real name.

I know it sounds obsessive. It probably is. But I believe that names matter. They are the first promise you make to a reader about who this person is. And I do not break promises.