When do you name your characters?

Hello, people!

I have started an author chat on Twitter-

– It’s called “X”, now, Yorgos!

– I don’t need another ex in my life, so it’s “Twitter”!

Anyway! As I was saying I started an author chat on Twitter and BlueSky, which, hopefully I’ll maintain for some time. So, I’ll probably be posting some of the replies that I want to… prate about here.

Please feel free to reply to these questions!

So, the question this time is “Do you name your characters before or after you flesh out their personalities?”

Nine times out of ten I name my characters after I flesh out their personalities and, in some cases, even after I have started writing the story. That’s because I like the name of the character to describe them to some extend. At least for the important characters – which can be all the characters, actually. Therefore, I need to know them well, before I name them.

In some cases, the names are symbolic, rather than descriptive.

“Gregory Kirk” is an example in which all the characters’ names have some meaning. In “The House in the Lake”, Kane’s name has a meaning, while Lugh’s name is symbolic.

An exception is when I write myself in the story. In such cases, I name the MC either by my name (Yorgos) or the almost equally common Greek name (Yannis), and the LI with the name of my first love. Okay… not a real love. Not someone I had had a relationship with, or had sex with – seen his naked beauty, though. Just a years-long crush.

But what about you? Do you name your characters before, or after you get to know them? And do you choose the names to mean something? Do you shape their characters according to their names, if you name them before fleshing their character? Or, do you choose their names so that they have a nice sound, or a nice sound with each other?

I’m looking forward to learning how you handle this part of your writing.

Love and Kisses!

😘💖💖

Yorgos KC