I need lots and lots of names. Not outlandish or weird, but not too bland, either. I don’t want my novel filled with John Smiths.
First and foremost I need a good man’s name that has roots in 17th century England but sounds modern. Like it’s based on an old name, but isn’t archaic. Like someone wanted to name their child after a relative from that era but didn’t want to use an old-fashioned sounding name. (Please give the older name as well, as a pair)
Next I need good stripper stage names.
Lastly I need good first and last names in general, for a variety of minor characters. I have several characters named with first names only. The story takes place in Arizona so some hispanic based names (both first and last) would fit in as well.
Most of my writings (admittedly not the best source material) included the surnames Sexton, Dietrich, Keller, Winston, Sabre, McCool, Prescott. The first names tended to be Richard/Rick, Jacob/Jake, Nicholas, Alyson, PJ (which was short for Patricia Jane in my writings), Mage, Deborah, Cara, and Brian.
All of those variations are based off people I know. One of my high school friends was actually named Mage Sabre. And I’ve been accused of using too many names with a hard “c” in them.
I always thought that if I wrote a novel I’d slip in some sort of Easter egg in the character’s names; like have characters named Schneider, Thompson, and Bendix. (A tip of the cap to anyone who knows that reference without having to look it up.) There were characters in one of the Jurassic Park movies named Roland and Van Owen, from a Warren Zevon song.
Maybe you can some theme to borrow from, like the real names of the Flying Karamazov Brothers or something.
Thanks for the suggestions so far, and thanks for that awesome link, Polycarp!
At 20 single-spaced lines in Word this is already the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I have so far to go. Does anyone know how long (in Word) an average novel is? Or what the page ratio is for Word pages (Times New Roman, 12pt, single spaced) to a paperback book page?