CAA Artists: How'd your characters get their names?

[ChristianKitsune]

Hey guys! I was just wondering how my fellow artists (and writers) who have characters gave them their names.

Do you all do research to see what names mean, or just go "Hmmm that sounds cool!"

Please post your favorite characters, and if you can the meaning of their names! It might be fun to see just what they mean

For me, I do a little bit of both:
For the 4 that I draw the most, Brendan, Valerie and Kyle, and Fayth. I didn't really do any name meaning searches, I named them when I was younger, and before I really cared about that.

But just for fun, here's a bit of background in how I named them.

Brendan: I can't remember the source of why I named him, haha! I just thought it was a REALLY fun name... It's funny but a girl in my church had a baby and named him Brendan. I always joke about someday making him dye his hair blonde with blue tips XDDD She'd probably kill me if I did that though

Name Meaning: Little Prince- BWHAHA what? Brendan? A Prince? LAWL

Valerie: Actually, when I was in the 9th and 10th grade I was working a short story for a contest, and she was the star. I got her name, because in French Class Valerie was the name I chose for myself. (We had to have a French name in that class XD) And I thought it would be cool to implement some of me into her. We're both passionate about Art, and all that Jazz.

Name Meaning: Strong. Brave( French meaning, which is what I follow)

Kyle: hehe I just liked that name... Dunno why XD It just sounded like a cool, serene character's name. And that's kinda what Kyle is....

Name Meaning: A place. A narrow place. Or a straight (river)

Fayth: Originally, I had her name spelled the traditional way: Faith. But later, I decided to change the spelling a bit...it's a twisted between Fay, and Faith. I've always liked Fay... I dunno why. So it was fun to mix-n' match the two.

Name Meaning: Faithful. (ooh that's a hard one)

So how about you guys?

[Maledicte]

Hmm, okay, I'll bite XD

I end up making names for my characters, since most of them are set in a fantasy setting. But some of them do have real life names. Sometimes I'll go with what sounds right in my head, or I'll do some research.

Jockobren: Came from a period in my life when I was a fan of everything Irish. This character has red hair and wears green--his name is a smushed version of Jack O'Brien, which is an Irish name.

Meaning: Excellence, exalted one

Laviscia: This was back when I would look up adjectives describing the character. Her name is based off the word "lascivious," meaning lustful. Now her character is nearly asexual.

Chaos: "Chaos" was just a filler name for my genetically-enhanced clone character. I had no idea why he'd have a name like that, but it was short and easy to remember. Now "Project: Chaos" is the experiment he was born in.

Marcus Sandy: It's not often I come up with a last name to go along with the first name right off the bat. This name came from a couple of speech balloons in an issue of Nightwing. A guy is calling his bodyguards: "Marcus! Sandy!" I just liked how they sounded. *shrug*

Meaning: Mars (Roman god of war)

Wilhelm: My co-writer and I needed a German name for one of our characters. We had "Hans" as his temp name and scoured lists on the internet for names that were German in origin. We had it whittled down to three names, and Wilhelm just sounded right.

Meaning: "Desire" and "Protection."

This was rather fun and enlightening.

[Fish and Chips]

I tend to simply choose a name that fits, though I dislike whitebread names (John, Bob, etc) and overcompensate by infesting my cast with grand-style European names, some I confess I made up.

Occasionally though, I'll sneak in joke references as name tags for important supporting characaters; for example, one of my rough scripts features a company of three bounty hunters named Huey, Dewey, and Louie who through convoluted circumstance find themselves in the same universe as an innoculously named couple of spies, Boris and Natasha.

[minakichan]

Hmmm~ I love this topic! I always overthink my character names... Generally, I pull things from foreign languages and other words, or with some kind of reference. Or a pun!

OCs:
Märche Nviter: While "Marche" could be the French word for "market" or "walk," I based this name on the word "mark," like a magic symbol (he's a magic-user). Nviter is taken from the French word "nuit," for "night." I wanted to make it slightly German sounding without knowing a thing about German, so hence the alterations.
Aullery d'Ptrische: "Aullery" comes from the French "Aurélie," for "aurora;" I wanted to take a very feminine name and tomboyify it, so it became the very simple result. d'Ptrische is a corruption on "Patrician," an exotic and rather vulgar take on a pretty noble name because her family is one of the highest in her small town. Essentially, I wanted to Anglify a French name.

Manga characters:
Lien and Rian: I wanted two siblings with rather vague ethnicities. Lien has multiple meanings; it could be the French "bond"or the English word for "The right to take and hold or sell the property of a debtor as security or payment for a debt or duty," to sort of signify that she is pretty controlling, forceful, and the Chinese "lotus," a graceful flower that floats on the surface, someone shallow.
Jirou Tan: Supposed to be a vaguely Asian name. In reality, it should be "Tan Jirou." With the name Jirou, some people would assume he is Japanese, but if you read it the western name, you get a pretty accurate depiction of personality, "jiroutan"-- Chinese homonym for "chicken soup!"
Jing Yan: Another cheesy pun. In development, I always called him "megane-kun" ("glasses-kun") because he's a nerd... Read the Chinese way, it's "yanjing," or "glasses." Also, I have a friend named Jing with a rather similar personality XD

According to Venus and Marx:
Kami: Most people would think this is the Japanese "god," which was only half-intentional-- Communists claim to be inherently atheist, but they worship their leaders as gods a bit too much at times, so this was sort of a criticism. The real intention is fairly obvious-- "Kami" sounds like "Commie."
Drottier: Originally his name was "Troski," but I thought that'd be too obvious. Taken from the French word "droit" or "right," as in human rights and the opposite of left; although he is Kami's right hand man, he is actually indifferent to Communism.
Arista mon Arché delano Blessé: Another obvious one: trying to Frenchify everything. Her name spells "Aristocracy Monarchy of the Noblesse."
Jenny: A plain-Jane name like Aullery. Actually, Jenny was the name of Karl Marx's wife; she's not Communist, but she certainly doesn't always sympathize with the monarchy.

[Syreth]

For me it depends on the setting of the story. For Kardia, I opted for simpler modern names. For my fantasy stories, I usually come up with original names that aren't intentionally tied to any language, and make up my own meaning for them. I'm not too fond of the idea of taking a modern name and changing the lettering and/or adding extra syllables to make them more exotic. For instance, "Johnnis," in Chosen by Ted Dekker. Nothing against the book, but the idea doesn't really appeal to me.

[bigsleepj]

I don't tend to choose names that "says something about the character" or that "sound cool." I tend to just lob names together as whether particular fancy takes me. I will take examples from my main writing.

Most names I conjure out of thin air when I need to name a character, and tend to draw from something I watched. For instance I have an unseen character named Porter, who is named after the main character in the Mel Gibson movie Payback. I just thought it would be a good surname to use. Another character is named Jennifer, whom I named after the girlfriend of a friend. I needed a name for the character and her name popped into my head. I wrote it down.

I have another character named Akira Shimura, which technically might go as a cool name, but it isn't actually the character's real name. He had many reasons to choose it, including not actually caring about his birth name, so he combined the name of his favourite Japanese director (Akira Kurosawa) and favourite Japanese actor (Takahasi Shimura). Hmmm, wait, in a way that does technically says something about the character.

My main character's name sounds slightly funny, though it certainly isn't meant entirely to be a funny name like Rufus T Firefly or Greenstreet Backstraw. The surname is a real, so is the first name, but the combination just sounds kinda off, which is the idea.

Please note: whenever I write humorous / silly stories all of the above is void.

[Souba]

[color="RoyalBlue"]Wow, what a great idea for a thread, Kitsune!
Looks like everyone has come up with very creatively inspired names.
Well most of my character's names have comes from the thesaurus, or foreign languages, and sometimes just words I like.

Silver Pennon from Darkworld has silver hair, and his last name is another word for wings, which I thought best described his character.

Black Ice he's the opposite of another angel-like character named Snow, so you can guess why I named him that.

Jackket Knightmare is both the name of the lead character and comic I published recently, it's sort of hard to describe...but I'll try.

When the main character has "nightmares," he transforms so I thought his name should be Knightmare because of that and because he's like a knight who helps the children.

Also at the time a movie called "The Jacket" commercials came out while I was working on the title design for the comic, so I typed Jacket to the title added an extra "k" by mistake and it worked, so I kept it like that.
One day I'll have a joke about that in the comic, lol!
Beloved in Grace,
Souba [/color]

[Mave]

Hmmm....I usually pick names because they just sound nice or reflect characters/real people whom I know.

Kim - unisex name for a bishie, part of my name, Korean
Linda - have a friend with that name
Paul - referencing to our Paul of the New Testament
Abel - always thought it was Catholic, have a friend with that name
Gil - based on teen rock singer but also, Gil Grissom (CSI), nice & short
Doug - originally a pun on his reputation of 'Mad Dog' but I kinda shoved that idea later, name still remained though
McCoy - McCoy of Law&Order
Francis - Attended St. Francis Xavier church before
Miranda - I'm really not sure why...just sounded nice
Diana - Yet another 'gee, just sounded nice" moment

I only start creating unique names when the series is a fantasy type. Nothing too deep here, folks.

[Song_of_Storms]

This is a neat idea, Kitsune! I've been thinking about these for a long time and finally get to tell someone! XD Yay!

OK, first my most used and cherished. ^^

Original Characters~

Scat
My eldest character, idea wise. I'm a huge fan of old comedies, namely Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis. Well, in one of my favorite of Bob's movies, Road to Rio, Bing Crosby's character is called "Scat". Bob is my favorite, but in that movie his name was "Hot-Lips". Call me old fashioned, but that just didn't seemed to fit.

Duilio
From the Roman name Duilius, which is possibly derived from Latin duellum "war". This was the name of a Roman consul who defeated the Carthaginians in a naval battle. Also, Duilio is Italian, so the origins there.

This, to me, fit him. Duilio is continuously at war spiritually. He fails to understand how Christ can forgive even the most desperate pasts, and because of this he rebukes his council and the love of others.

Seiichi
I just randomly saw this name and liked it. I later embraced it on my one-eyed, naive archer. I didn't know it was Japanese till much later. I always gave it Italian influence, and still do. ^^ It means Pure.

Cearúil
A Gaelic name meaning Fierce warrior. Cearúil is your quintessential "RPG" hero, but incredibly clumsy and dimwitted.

Role-playing:

Okashi:
A cute Kitsune, simply means "one fond of sweats".

Unico:
Means "alone", which perfectly describes how Unico's arrogant nature has run off any aspects of company.

Ilia:
One of my favorite Christian Screamo bands! ^^b I thought it would make a pretty female name.

There! ^^ Some of them may seem... hallow, but I'm used to them.

[ChristianKitsune]

Oooh awesome names you guys! It's interesting to hear where you all get them. I'm glad I'm not the only one who does research and stuff :3

[Debitt]

DDD Oooh, fun topic~

Generally I just go with whatever name I like. Characters who are more "period" get the ethnic origins of their names researched. Otherwise, it all depends on my whims. I tend to stay away from giving characters a name that purposefully "fits" them unless I've got a good reason for it.

Ferris Russel -- Because I liked it. The name Ferris is a bit out of place, but I wanted his name, of all things, to be the oddest part about him. He's your boy next door, and I love him for it.

Kian "Key" Brander -- The character started out life with Key being his real name. But I thought that was too..."ohay gaiz dis is wut dis chracter duz" because he has the power to teleport via doors. So I decided Key would be his well earned nickname, and grabbed an actual name for him.

Aster Valentine -- Aster was just because I liked the name. Valentine started as a bit of a joke, and ended up having such a nice ring to it that it stuck.

Kol Darcy -- I thought it fit him, though I had to retcon in the fact that it was a pseudonym when I decided he'd be around 500 and Greek.

Minami Kazuki (family name, given name) -- Started at out as an RP character that I was in a pinch to name, so I took his name from my two favorite Air Gear characters: Minami Itsuki and Mikura Kazuma.

Udou Yamato -- Another "lol can't think of anything better, have an Air Gear character's last name" case (Udou Akira). I picked Yamato because it's a fairly common name, and Yamato is a...pretty average dude. Since I started reading Katekyo Hitman Reborn, I keep accidentally calling him Yamamoto (guy in my avatar), though. orz