One of the fun parts of writing and making up lives is that you get to name everyone.

So how do we authors think up names? There’s the old tip to walk around cemeteries and get inspired by the names of persons long gone, but I’ve never done that. Sometimes it comes to you in a flash and you know THAT is the right name. Other times you will meet someone and their name will suddenly seem right for your next character. That happened to me when I was getting a colonoscopy! One of the nurses was very friendly and I liked her name. As I woke from the anesthesia, I knew her name was perfect for the protagonist in my next novel. Thank you Hilary.

I’ll tell you a secret. I get many of the names I need from social security! Nope, I’m not stealing anyone’s identity, but it’s a great way to see the most common names from a particular decade when people were born, 200 male and 200 female. Here’s the link if you want to check out your own decade, or if you’ve got a baby on the way and like vintage names.  It’s fun to see how much influence pop culture and famous people have on new parents.  I find this site much more helpful than baby naming sites and there are no flashing ads.

Sometimes a name comes to me as I’m mulling it over for a few days. That happened with Julia, one of the main characters from Imprint and Inheritance. I actually had a different name, but it didn’t seem right. During a walk with my trusty dog in the woods, Julia popped into my mind. I remember right where I was when that happened, next to the stream just after crossing a wetland swelling with skunk cabbage and then a little plank footbridge. Julia was born.

In the novel, I needed Julia’s mother to explain to her why she picked that name and have this choice be a sign of love for her.  I’d become very attached to the name Julia, but I was stuck on that essential plot point. I thought I might have to change the name again (thank goodness for the “replace” command), but it made me quite sad. My character felt like “Julia.”

I was coming up blank with searches on famous people named Julia, famous characters named Julia, famous historical figures named Julia. The name derives as a feminine form of Julian, which is derived from the supreme god Jupiter in Roman mythology. It didn’t fit my needs at all. 

Then I stumbled upon a secondary character named Julia in a classic book pretty much everyone has read. The Julia in George Orwell’s 1984 fit my purposes perfectly, and the Julia in Imprint and Inheritance was thrilled with why her mother chose that name.

Julia is number 118 in popularity on the social security register for the 1960s, her birth decade, so it was accidentally a good choice there as well. Julia got to stay Julia for all the right reasons.

In case you’re wondering about my dog’s name, another fun activity, it’s Jocco. That also came to me in the woods, actually pretty close to the place I came up with Julia. I’ll have to remember that if I’m stuck on a name in the future!

I just finished reading Liane Moriarty’s The Apple Doesn’t Fall (Yes, I can recommend it… what a good study of marriage and sibling rivalry in such an engaging story). As I skimmed the acknowledgements, she described naming one of her characters. Simon Barrington is a real person who won a fundraising contest where the winner would have a character named after them in Liane’s next book. I wondered if the character’s appearance and characteristics were based at all on reality, but was never able to find anything about the real Simon, just the actor who played him on the video adaptation. If you know Simon, let me know!

Do you have any fun tips for finding names for babies or characters?