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Would love to get feedback around naming characters. Do you like making their names 'sound' like the main character traits? In Sci-fi do names have to be strange to fit the genre?
I kinda like incongruity so having very 'normal' names appeal to me, but so few books follow this, it must be for a reason. I guess an unusual name stays in your memory a bit more?
@roomey I feel this really depends on the culture where the names are from. I go with everyday names because I'm writing realistic near-future stuff, so people will have everyday names. Sometimes I'll morph names a bit to show cultural change. When you name a character, think about who gave that name, why they gave that name, and where the name came from (in their world, not necessarily ours). I'm the type to go for names that fit much more than names that stick out just for memorability.
@michaelthomet I like that, thinking about who named the characters and why, it's a good way to approach it.
@roomey Normal in which community? I often use this name generator, selecting the culture I want for a given character, and generating until something fits:
@cyberhuman Normal for Ireland / UK in my case. Eg. A space hero called Barry Murphy
Thank you for the link! Thats class
@roomey I read a lot of science fiction. I have seen many familiar names as well as many unfamiliar names. Some of the naming convention depends on the setting of your work. For instance, Andy Weir writes science fiction that is set out fairly close in time to the current time. Therefore, It would be weird if he didn't use ordinary names. If I were writing a story set in say 2049 and my protagonist was 35, I might look for the most popular names of 2014 and 2015 to pick out names that might be common in his cohort.
A story set in 3023 would likely have names that are very different. Look at common names from a thousand years ago to see why.. Some might be current names that have evolved such as (To use my own name as an example) Judith might have become Judit or Juith. Others would be new.. The fantasy name generator site is good for finding these kinds of names.
A colony based off a particular culture such as an Irish colony would have likely prioritized keeping the names of that culture, so even in the far future you still might have Barry Murphy.
And aliens, of course, would not have names that sound normal to humans. Again, the fanatsy name genreators can help here. And sometimes, the alien name is unpronounceable to humans and we give them a human sounding nickname. So *#$&%&#$%&f might be called Patsy. (Symbols are stand-ins for letters we don't have in our alphabet.)
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https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/
@HLGEM I'm sold on Patsy the alien 
great points tho. I think for piece of mind it's a better idea of having a name for some reason rather than a random name. I wonder how much the name ends up influencing the character!
@roomey Feel free to write Patsy the alien.
I think the name almost certainly influences the character in writing just as real world names influence us. In part it is how people react to the name. Ask anyone with an African name how often they get their resumes tossed instead of an interview.
And people feel comfortable or uncomfortable with their names. That's why some people use a nickname all the time and people often have no idea what their legal name is.
I like my name just fine, but I was always called by the nickname until adulthood when I started using the more formal version. Only people who know me really well or back to childhood generally call me by the nickname now.
And is a girl named Fawn or a man named Butch going to find it harder to become CEO of a multi-national corporation or a large bank? Sure, because their name carries a stereotype with it.
And Patel could be in the third generation since immigration, but many people are going to assume he is an immigrant. Miguel's family could have been in California or Texas since the 1500s and people will act as if he, too, is newly come (and illegally at that) to the US.
@HLGEM Thanks for this, it is good to consider the impact a name will have on the character. Because it isn't real life when you are writing, it is a painting, and the accents here and there make a lot of difference.
The characters name, as much as other traits and actions, can paint that picture.
As an an exercise I think I will rewrite a story with just a Main character's name different, and see how that changes the story.
@roomey Names are an extension of your world and they set the expectations of the reader.
Another way to think of it is that (usually) our names are given to us by someone else. They picked that name with purpose.
Why would someone name a robot "Sweepie". Are they a sweeper robot or "sweet as pie"?
Take names from history and change them. Vercingetorix sounds like a dragon's name but it's actually someone who fought Ceaser. Change a syllable or two and boom, instant dragon.
@schnoots History is a great resource for this actually, good point. And no doubt doing a bit of research to find a name will give you plenty of material to flesh out the character also
For sci-fi, I'd offer two things for consideration:
- alien names should follow the same rules (phonological, structural, semantic) within a species;
- avoid alien words unless they're needed (the "call a rabbit a smeerp" issue).
Apart from that, I tend to avoid too obviously meaningful names, but I like a name to be evocative -- the problem being, one's never sure a name evokes the same thing to the reader than to the author.
True, in actual settings.
However here we are dealing with imaginary, even narrative, settings, where things are simplified for the sake of storytelling. An example of such a simplification might be "if my aliens don't produce vowel sounds then none of their names should have vowels" -- irrealistic, yet self-consistent).
Sorry if I made it sound like it was a real-life rule -- and if I made it sound like hard rules. I mean neither.
@stephenwhq @aaribaud
It makes sense as it helps the reader understand the story you are telling.
I understand that sometimes you want to make your story a bit obtuse, but if that's the case, it should be targeted, and not just in general, make following the story difficult.
I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and don't have a good head for names, so I very much would appreciate a bit more thought in this area, and I'll be a bit more conscious of it myself
Phrased as 'I want to make the alien names sound coherent to help the reader' - I'm fine with it.