I can’t be the only one, do you have issues naming your book characters?
More and more lately (especially after having to name a baby.) It seems impossible to come up with a name for my characters. 
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Absolutely. I’ve created so many list of names and I’m always stuck there with like no thoughts. I rarely actually use a name off of those list even though I’m constantly adding names I love.
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It’s like you’ve heard too many names in person that you can’t write a character without being reminded of something. 
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Yeah, I definitely avoid names where I’ve had some sort of relationship with someone with that name.
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Surprisingly, no (book-wise) but I usually go nsane when it comes to naming toons on World of Warcraft.
Can be hard sometimes, yes
I just name them and don’t care.
Part of it is that since I’m musically inclined, a lot of my made-up names sound pretty rhythmic. Athelai, Harvold Twelvethborn, Dreithan, Sssyraine, Esme, Althalos, Thalosine, all names I’m currently using.
So, since it’s like this? Time to make up stuff:
Adeinse, Balruth, Crelst, Dawbny, Eliz, Frants, Gwednes, Hanube, Ilft, Jerith, Koile, Labnas, Norinth, Obelon, Perthen, Qali, Rausch, Stile, Ubney, Vaningey, Wende, Xil, Yammerschmouth, Zoein.
(Took about two or so minutes to write that out, from nowhere.)
And yeah, I can rattle off most of that verbally without killing my tongue. It’s not hard to do, to me. So a name comes up immediately, quite often.
I do research names when I want a name from a certain era that’s plausible.
I always have this struggle lol.
And I never manage to have a process work for other books.
I struggle with book titles the same way lol
I’m fine with basic names; there’s hundreds to choose from. My struggle is finding a good cultural name. I have a side character who is of Korean descent and after searching everywhere, I finally settled on Ha-nuel. 
Although, I have a similar issue with fantastical names. I guess any name that is not “white” or “basic” or “English” can be hard for me because I then have to put in a lot of thought. It’s different when you can be like, “You’ll be named Sarah, Rose, Britney, Josh, Jacob, Kyle…” because that’s easy. But when you’re dealing with something more than your bubble, it gets to be a bit much. But it’s also a nice challenge, and I like being able to find new names I like that I can use later or on be inspired by. 
The eternal struggle! I’m always taking too much time searching for the meanings and all, even for side characters, and I often wonder how I’ll do if I have a baby one day cuz I’m afraid to take all the good names I like lol
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I don’t really have too many issues, I tend to look up names once I know the vibe of my character I can usally find a name that fits who they are. I am very particular when it comes to names, just because I think they have such important meanings so I try to find names that have meanings that resonate with my characters…
That being said I’m currently writing a series and I’ve fumbled a bit when it comes to names because I didn’t have the forethought to thoroughly plan so when I get around to re-writing I’m definitely going to be changing some names for sure!
This is exactly me to a T. 
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I used to, but then I found Behind the Name and Fantasy Name Generators.
I write fantasy mainly, which means I can go crazy with names. So, if I’m stuck—the keysmash method.
Tyfiuwdf
Tyfi uw df
Fytia Wu Daf
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Fitia Woo Dahf
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I used to, but now I keep running lists of suitable names for all occasions. For instance, good names for bimbos:
Fawn
Bambi
Bubbles
Tiffany
Buffy
Lolita
Gigi
Fifi
Victorian names:
Montague
Aloysius
Baldwin
Chester
Llewellyn
Mortimer
Mildred
Mabel
etc.
And sometimes I just use the most obvious name for someone, taken from English. For instance, Hector is a man’s name, but it’s also a verb that means to bully someone, so I named the bully Hector. The cheerful, happy girl gets named Sunny. Things like that. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
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I usually come up with a naming theme! That helps me reduce my options for a character name. With less options I find it easier because I can just choose the first name that sounds fitting, and it saves me some time.
My most recent naming theme was Plants, so I just saved a “plant-inspired names for babies” list onto my writing document that I could go to whenever I needed a new character. I have to limit myself to 1-2 lists though or I’ll spend hours trying to find the ‘perfect’ name.
As another theme example, my best friend has a different naming theme for characters depending on their place of origin or species. She writes fantasy, so these places are all made up. I don’t remember what the themes were. I think the MC and her origin country had Victorian names, and the Trolls were all named after flowers, etc.
She put a lot more thought into her theme than I did xD my book was set in a world where plants had become mutated and took over the world, and so of course I had to name all of my characters after plants. What other theme could I have had? xD Bryony, Coleus, Cedar, Forsythia. I thought the names were really nice.
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I have troubles with some characters, others are super easy. Vesper held out on me for like 2 years 
I was ready to kill him by time I finally figured out his name. Then there are characters whose names just pop up out of nowhere.
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You sound just like me! I have two list of names and I am always thinking of more names! LOL!
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I usually call that fat thumbs…which often comes out fat thimbs.
I also like the “jerking the reader around” method.
Vidence Trails, Fred Herring, Nine Dice, Readess Harn Idiotas, Folse and Trixie de’Kooi, Dumasse Stile Readon…usually it’s not this bad, but the name of the person does point to what they are. Like if you had a class of servants in an empire called Hextras, I’d be cackling.
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