How To Name The Original Characters In Your Comic, Manga, Or Webtoon Series
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 พ.ค. 2024
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In today's video, we will be going over EVERYTHING you need to know about creating CHARACTER NAMES. We will analyze popular names from Marvel Comics, anime series, and Western Comics to understand WHAT MAKES A GREAT CHARACTER NAME. Make sure you watch this video fully because aside from my TOP TEN TIPS, I am also including 18 BONUS WRITING TIPS.
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0:00 Introduction
0:41 Skillshare
2:08 Why Are Character Names Important?
3:03 Tip 1: Embrace The Ordinary
3:42 Tip 2: Consider The Time Period
4:32 Tip 3: Parent's Logic
5:20 Tip 4: Genre Influence
5:53 Tip 5: Naming Consistency
6:36 Tip 6: Dissimilar Names
7:24 Tip 7: Avoid Name Associations
8:22 Tip 8: Easy Pronunciation
8:57 Tip 9: Expressing Character Qualities
10:12 Tip 10: Name Generators
10:42 Closing Thoughts
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@zane Yes
What about names from the real life like Alex or Sam ? that are common names or names that come from your own country and culture? Hussein or Ali is a common Arabic name
@@husseinal-zubeidi8056 Those could work! In cases like that, I've seen some writers use impactful surnames/last names. But at the end of the day, if your story is set in reality, a normal name might work best. It all comes down to if you think it's recognizable enough that your reader won't forget it when they have to keep track of all of your character's names
@@MonitorComics oh okay thanks for the help
Whenever I begin one of your videos I get that excited feeling when you sit down for a movie! Great video 😁
The cool thing about naming your characters is, you can create a totally unique name from ordinary words. Take Legato from Trigun for example. His full name is Legato Bluesummers, the last name being made from ordinary words that people use on a daily basis. You could even go a step further and make a unique name that symbolizes the character itself. If your character is an evil psychopath born in winter, you could give them the last name “Redwinter”. How you name your character is totally up to you.
Very true!! You make some great points! Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and adding onto the conversation!
Legato is also just a music playing technique where you slide between two notes making them overlap (I think it's pretty common in blues).
So while it isn't on the same level of everyday use as "blues" or "summer", it's still just a regular word and it ties into the music theme.
[Edit] correction to typos from making the comment on my phone.
@@ZeroStrife1396legato is actually an Italian word for bound/tied.
My favorite names from fiction are Neo, Eren Jeager, Tony Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Walter White and Paul Atreides. They're so fitting for the characters and I can't even explain why
Great choices! Thanks for taking the time to share your favorites!
@@MonitorComics also Sephiroth from ff7
My favorite is Sephiroth
Reason: It starts divine and gracious but ends agressive and fierce like Sephiroth's character
Actually,I'm not entirely sure if the name Walter White was "invented" for the character (by this I mean i don't think the name was purposely given to him with a meaning behind it,at least not at first),I say this because if I read correctly,Vince Gilligan based Walter off a news article he read once,which talked about a man that cooked meth in secret,and if I am not mistaken,he was named Walter White, there's actually a video about it on TH-cam, although I'm not sure if it's the same case Gilligan read about it.
Idk why but i like Zhongli
"avoid choosing names that have become iconic in pop culture"
Araki: *sweats profusely*
LOL Araki is a madman. He knew what he was doing with all of those references. That tip has exceptions of course, like biographies and retelling are bound to use pop culture names
For that bit I just meant if youre writing a standard isekai, you might not want your protagonist be called Beyonce LOL
Yeah this is pretty difficult cause i like to come up with more unique, hxh type names but its so hard trying to find a name that sounds right bc i mix and match different syllables and sounds. theyre not too complicated but I would like to provide a variety of different types of names
I see! Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and adding onto the discussion! I can see how that could be challenging! Best of luck!!
@@MonitorComics bro i love your feedback to ur own community, keep up the good work
@@slimtickett Thank you!!
@@MonitorComics to be honest I think Vinland saga did good on it's naming for example Thorfin. He has a cool understandable name
@@DiegoLopez-is8kq yeah i like vinland saga names it perfectly fits the setting
My best naming experience so far has been for a character named Rayden Dagger. I liked the name 'Hayden' but wanted the intensity and harshness of an 'r' sound, so I mushed the two together. I also later learned that Raiden is the Japanese God of lightning (this has significance to the plot, but is also a massive spoiler). I kept the 'y' as it makes the spelling more feminine like Robyn compared to Robin.
Her last name also helps tell you not to mess with her, albeit its a little on the nose.
That's actually really cool!! Thank you for taking the time to share your process and explain all of that!! I love the name and intentions behind it!
this is cool! i have a character named Inabi based on the Japanese word "inabikari" which means "flash of lightning" and he's a lightning user.
The raiden name is also mentioned the game genshin cuase there is a god called raiden shogun and she is is like the god of lightning litterly 🤡
Awesome! I have 2 Characters named "Bleu and Blue Stick" cause.. they have Blue Eyes (I was lazy)
Edit: The Guy named "Bleu Stick" is now called "Robin Alarie" and "Robin" means "Bright/Bright Blue", it's perfect because he is the Main Character who will save the world, and he has Blue Eyes and Red (It looks Orange) Hair. And the guy named "Blue Stick" is now called "Bleu Alarie" because of his Blue Eyes and because he is half French, and their last name is now "Alarie" which means "all power" and their Family are strong trained martial artists, and also it's French.
Raiden is a main character name in the manga eleceed good manga btw check it out but I have feeling you already read it sus..
MC: Jelani (Full of strength in Swahili)
Female MC: Nuru (Filled with light in Swahili)
Second MC: Amare (One who builds)
I'm going for a fantasy world with African themes
Love the concept!! The names sound really cool! Thanks for taking the time to tell us a bit about your project! Best of luck!
Bro, an African-inspired fantasy setting? Bro, now that just sounds awesome, I'd love to see that. Not to mention the many cryptids and creatures in African mythology that can be used here.
@@deadbeatnetwork9792 Preciate the support on my idea. I can't tell you the name of my story because people be stealing out here though. And thanks for the ideas on creatures in African mythology cause I was struggling with worldbuilding. I plan to use the emotional aspects and camaraderie of Fairy Tail while also combining some of the philosophy and villain writing of Naruto.
@@deadbeatnetwork9792 We DEFINITELY need more African-Inspired settings in manga.
I don't know if you follow Saturday AM, the company that I am published with, but they have two manga series with African influences
The first series, Oblivion Rouge, by instagram.com/papsouleye/
on Instagram has an ALL AFRICAN CAST
The other series, Orisha, by instagram.com/zayf_illustrations/
also has a fantasy setting inspired by African Culture.
Hopefully you can check those artists out and give their series a quick read if you got the time!
@@alexsanimeart5706 Ah sweet. A combination of those qualities from those two anime in a different type of story sounds pretty intriguing. Also that's quite understandable for the name. And yeah there are many mythical creatures in African lore that you can pull here, like were-hyenas, the Kongamato, the Grootslang and heck you can probably pull some influences from Egypt's lore since that's also something quite interesting in it of itself. Actually now that I think about it, I think it would be interesting if your cast traveled to Egypt at some point since it is located in Northern Africa. Just a little idea there but overall your story conecpt sounds pretty cool. Hope to see it someday if it becomes official.
Videos like this always intrigue me. Characters have always been an easy job for me- almost like they straight up built a town in my head and summon themselves when bored. Since it's such a natural thing, I find it interesting to hear different tips and how other people build them up
Same these type of videos got me interested in this channel
🤓
same
Characters come naturally for me, but their names? *laughs nervously*
Did you know in My Hero Academia, every character’s name has some connection to their quirks? That becomes a very important clue in recent big twist in the manga which blew my mind
Bakugo-bakudan-bomb
Kaminari = lightning
@@fireandicegamez1025 Shoto = "Burnt-cold"
Asui = "frog"
Ashido = "acid"
Iida Tenya = Idaten= a Buddhist god that symbolized godspeed
Tokoyami = "always dark"
Kirishima ="sharp"
OFA successor's names:
Midoriya Izuku(9)
All Might's real name - Toshinori Yagi(8)
All Might's Sensei - Shimura Nana(7)
@@luckymankwok it's's really cool how some shonen manga readers name their characters on a formula. An example aside from MHA is Dragon Ball, where Toriyama Akira names all it's characters based on food.
Freiza: Freezer, and all of Freiza's gang's names have something to do with a freezer. The Ginyu force named are all based on milk, like cheese, yogurt, milk, butter, cream.)
Everyone that's a sayian who came from planet Vegeta: vegetables
-Kakarot: carrot
-Raditz: radish
-Bardock: burdock
There's more but I forgor
Let me guess, tetsutetsu (I know I spelt that wrong) is named after tungsten
@@simplykoda4100 thought tetsu ment steel, so he ment steelsteel
My favorite name experience is 組暗雛佗 (Kumian Hinata). I know "Hinata" is a common name in anime/manga, however, the Kanji for that 'Hinata' means 'a sunny place'. Interesting about Japanese names is that the same pronunciation but different kanji means different things. In my case, 'Kumian' means group of shadows, my 'Hinata' written in different kanji means doll with sad voice. It really reflects my character as she went through the hell of things in her life. She can be beautiful as a doll but her life is engulfed in darkness that she is a broken doll.
That name sounds fitting! Thank you for taking the time to share all of that and telling us about the kanji meanings! Best of luck with your story!
Hinata Shoyo, sunny place flying in the sun. He's a little sunshiny boi and I love him to bits.
@@SpringStarFangirl I love him too, little baby crow!!!
Hi, do you know how to create and combine words/names to create a whole entire name for a character; and know how to use kanji for those names. I'm struggling to create names and name branches for my characters.
@Rainbow Rose Princess Mishti OK whats the website. I'm still tryna figure what Kanjis actually are because how can I combine them together. They can't just be random or can they? Like how can you separate the right symbols from the word to create said name?
I give my characters symbolic names in my native language. That way english readers won't know what the name means, unless it is mentioned inside the story, making it sound unique. Also that way it doesn't sound silly like if it was in English lol
That's a great strategy! Thank you for taking the time to share your process with us! I'd be interested in hearing some of those character names and their meanings! Best of luck with your story!
I tried that as well but they all ended up not sounding quite right, and they might not be very easy to pronounce ;-;
Ayy I did too except that it was just other languages
Alright I’ve decided to name my oc rei bc it means night in my native language and he has dark blue hair
Maybe I’m just bad at making oc’s ;-;
@@daychild_ What's your native language?
"Each character should have different sounding names"
Clannad: Tomoya and Tomoyo
My Hero Academia: Shoto and Shota
My next life as a villainess: Marie and Maria
FACTS THO LOL
For Marie and Maria it's pretty perfect since they are supposed to be the same coin just different faces
you forgot rem and ram from re:zero xD
@@EliiKlee That's justified since they're sisters...twins.
@@EliiKlee I think with twins, it's more understandable if they have matching names. I'm a twin for example and my dad named me and my twin sister after him LOL
As much as i love Fate/Zero, it took me some time to remember the names of Kiritsugu, Kirei and Kariya, and then remmember which is which. This is a shame, sine all three characters are completely different from each other and have their own, unique stories. Having names such similiar made it harder for me to relate to those characters.
Thanks for taking the time to share your experience and adding onto the discussion! I agree, those names sound similar LOL. I wouldn't blame anyone for that mix up
Funny enough, those names probabaly look and sound nothing a like to a native Japanese speaker. They don't even start with the same letter in Japanese.
@@arthurmarshall6825 That is a great point!
Most of the time it depend on the world building, a name like "Nice" could even work in the right context. But yeah using the [Actual sounding name or object] + [Odd sounding or objective] work wonder too, Ex. "Chistinia Skyline", "Lighting Mc Queen" and "Jane Catalyst".
Those are GREAT POINTS. Especially the little formula you provided! Thank you for taking the time to add onto the discussion!
There's an anime character named Nice.
@@sirmel11 in what? I’ve read a lot of manga and watch a lot of anime and I’ve never seen this or maybe I’m just forgetting because I’m terrible at remembering names
@@mson925 Hamatora or something.
"Name association can lead to legal issues with copyrights"
*laughs in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure*
Thank you for making this. Coming up with names for my characters is the biggest problem I have had. I have only been able to name a couple side characters but not my main characters. I think the only time I was able to give my main characters names was my orignal character ideas for the show RWBY. Thank you.
I'm glad this video could be useful! Thank you for taking the time to watch and leaving a comment! Best of luck with your project!!
I guess I'll be bad at naming my child since I can't make one up for a fictional character. Lmao 🤣
Mood
Character names have always been a interesting process for me. I often make the character personality first, and then their names. That way I can have a easier time coming up with names. Not to mention all of my characters name are pretty simple. Names such as Barrel and Gale
This really helped me man, Im currently writing something where I have no idea what to name the supporting antagonist, and I came up with "Eric" on a whim, but now after this, I think I can come up with something better using the time period and Genre. I was about to do something wild, but then you reminded me that a parent named him.
That's awesome to hear! Thanks for taking the time to share all of that! Glad this video could help! Best of luck with your story!
I'm always surprised at just how much I learn in each of your videos! There's always something I didn't know. Hope I can catch your panel!
One of my characters is Hinata Hamasaki. I chose the name Hinata as it means sunflower, a flower that matches her sunny happy personality and her strength and determination as those flowers are known to be able to grow in the toughest of places. I chose 'Hamasaki' as her last name as a tribute to one of my favorite singers, Ayumi Hamasaki. Plus I love alliteration.
That's a great name! Thanks for taking the time to share your thought process behind it! I love it!
Here's a conundrum:
I write stories in my head while I do mundane tasks, then I outline on paper the key moments of the story and fill the gaps later. So far, I have 12 games, 3 TV series (each with average of 6 episodes) and 1 film.
None of these have a single name for a character 😅 I do have for a few, but it's like 3 of them. At this point, I might as well finished the story and then name them.
Thank you for taking the time to share a bit about your projects! I think your approach is effective! There's little benefit in stopping production over something like not being able to find the correct name yet
MANY professional projects take that same approach and use placeholder names or labels like "BOY A" until they figure out the name they want
That's awesome to hear though that you are working on so many projects! Best of luck!
UMMM IM SO LUCKY TO FIND THESE VIDEOS WHAAATTT WOOOOWWW THIS IS SOOO USEFULLL THNX UUUU
When I named my 5 main characters I just went off whatever I felt like but the rest of the cast have names with meanings. I'm hoping that this will one day drive people crazy as they try to see the reasoning behind the main few names and yet nothing comes of it
LOL I LOVE THAT
@@MonitorComics haha thanks XD
Omg I needed this knowledge so bad!!! I’ve been struggling with this for a while.
I'm really glad to hear that!! Thank you for checking this video out and taking the time to leave a comment! Best of luck with your story!
Thanks for this, I kept seeing your videos in my recommended every once and a while and it always makes me think about this manga I'm working on, I haven't been able to write a script but I'm going to watch more of your videos to continue progressing, and maybe I'll get better at drawing for find an artist after I complete the prologue. Thanks again
That's awesome to hear!! Thank you so much for deciding to check my stuff out! I really appreciate it and hope it can help! Best of luck with your project!!
I’m so glad you made a video for naming characters, I’m absolutely terrible at naming anything so this helps with my writing :)
I'm super glad to hear that!! Thanks for taking the time to check this video out and leaving a comment! Best of luck with your story!
You‘re basically the channel I searched for / needed since such a long time.
Thanks for all the inspiration, I‘m sure it will help us all a lot! ✨
I'm really happy to hear that! Thanks for taking the time to write such a nice comment!
Never really thought about guidelines for naming characters before all that much! This are some really cool tips to keep in mind and even if you got to break them, you can do it intentionally and with style at least. Like sometimes, you got to sacrifice easy pronounceability because the kinds of names in the setting are very unfamiliar to say an English audience. But might be worth it if the name is still really great and fitting for the character.
I find coming up with character names to be very fun especially when your efforts reward you with The Name and I might get my frustrations at times, but still enjoy the process of hunting for a name nevertheless.
Just the other day I found a The Name for a character I've been coming up with. As I am an aspiring game dev, I decided to take inspiration from Fire Emblem: Three Houses protag customization and would allow the player to customize the MC's name and gender. At the same time, the MC has a default name and I'm pretty proud of it. Their default name is Anu, a reference to the Egyptian Death god Anubis. This is fitting as in a fantasy setting where each of the twelve Western zodiac signs is represented as a god or goddess, Anu would be the deity representing Scorpio. I have many other names I really like for my other characters but talking about all of them would make this comment really long lol.
Thanks for the advice. It's a tad harder to see this work in a story that's more a fantasy setting, though...
I mean for me, all the girls are named in some respects to Flowers - which seems rather easy, but then you look at things like Language of Flowers and such and it creates a wide variety of ideas based on what flower name you give and it can be doubled in a sense with other languages or other parts.
Another case is I have a character named Rosca - that can be shorted to "Ross" but there's a sort of origin to it: Loscann is (as far as I can confirm this) Old Irish for 'Frog' and given the character himself has frog-like features, it fits well. I went with R instead of L due to interchangeable L and R sounds.
Very good points! Flower Language is super interesting, so I can see how working around that could be challenging. Fantasy names play by their own rules (or lack there of) haha. I've seen some very unique and one of a kind name in fantasy stories, so it was a bit harder to think of general tips for fantasy names. My best advice would be to do what youre doing with the flower subject. Pointing down a theme or some sort of association might help generate some ideas! Regardless, thanks for taking the time to share your experience! Best of luck!!
I love your art dude, it's fire
I thought of a name for a character/OC that I came up with.
His name is Amoré Vicii (アモーレ ヴィシー) (translation is in Japanese because manga, Japan you get it haha).
His first name ‘Amoré’ comes from the Latin name Amor, which translates to “Love” and is also the name of the Roman God, Cupid; it also means love in Spanish and Portuguese. I modified the name slightly to make it look more Italian upon reading it because this character is born in Italy, so I used the word ‘Amore’ since it is a word associated with the country as well as its culture, landscapes and food; and I added the apostrophe on the ‘é’ just to make it stand out.
His second name ‘Vicii’ comes from the word ‘Vici’ which means “I won/conquered” which actually comes from a famous phrase from Latin known as “Veni, Vidi, Vici” which means “I came, I saw, I conquered” (Julius Caesar also used this phrase)’ So I gave it to my OC just to give a sense of the power he holds. Like with the first name, I modified the name to make it look and sound more interesting. I added another ‘I’ at the end of ‘Vici’ to empathise on the character’s self importance as you normally address yourself with ‘I’ but since it’s appeared twice it sort of adds to an egotistical point of view, but not in a bad way I hope (I hope this makes sense) Also the name actually came from Avicii who is one of my favourite artists who died 5 years ago, so I wanted to commemorate him in way.
Altogether the name “Amoré Vicii” translates to “I conquered love” or “I won love”. I think, personally, this name is probably one of my favourite names Ive ever come up with. If I were to make a manga I would describe him as kind, humble, talented and very resilient. I would give him a backstory of facing against failure and heartbreak, only for him to come back up and face adversity to become a better/improved version of himself; so by conquering love, it means he basically levelled up to a higher point then before or he overcame heartbreak or even relationships/desires.
Also another point to mention, the ‘é’ in Amoré’s name is the noun for both masculine and feminine, so the fact it applies for both genders signifies how he can be seen by anybody as who he is or how he becomes popular to all different types of people and individuals like with Avicii)
The mc of my current book is called Loch Swarzforth, loch meaning hole in Latin, and swarz coming from black in German, and forth being a word I added randomly. Most of the characters have Latin/German derivative names, because it’s set in a world of magic, around medieval times.
Loch also means "loser" in Russian, sorry😅
Sometimes, it can take me longer to come up with good character names than it does to write the entire story.
omg I needed this video so much your a life saver 🙏🙏🙏
Really glad to hear that! Part 2 will be dropping sometime next week, as soon as my sponsor approves of it. It will have 10 more tips!
You're a goat for replying to people, never seen a big TH-camr interact with their community as much as you do!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it!!
Thank YOU SO MUCH BRO
I struggle with this alot of times
Of course! I hope it was able to help a bit!
Thank you. You deserve this. For a long time I found myself struggling in coming up with names for the characters in my story, and you helped me with the exact problem. I have begun writing a novel last year, and I am still stuck at episode 3. One of the characters in the novel is a man in his forties named Edmond Smith, Queen Tiana's watchdog. His previeous surname was Hersmith, but I realized it's to complicated. The name Edmond represent a king, so I wonder if it's a fitting name for the royal watchdog.
I just found out your channel! Thank you for making these. I’m in the process of writing my own story so this helps extremely :)
Of course! I'm super glad to hear that!! Thank you for taking the time to watch and leaving a nice comment! Best of luck with your project!
Having a pretty hard Christmas and watching your videos make it better, nice drawings btw
I'm sorry to hear that! I'm happy my videos can help a bit! Have a great holiday!!
Thank you!!! I really needed this
I'm super glad to hear that! Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to leave a comment!
Niceee amazing video!!!
Got so much to learn
Thankyou very much!
Thank you for taking the time to watch! I'm glad it could help!
Now we just need how to come up with a name for your comic/manga
Very true! That is on my list of upcoming video topics!
I have a lot of fun creating names for my characters. I'm on a project that is actually more of a self project since I don't consider myself an artist, that's not the job I chose, but creating characters and stories is just too much fun to me. I have this story with two factions called Rebels and Repressers, and their names work pretty much like superheroes or mha heroes, despite them being on the other side of society, kind of. Also there is a lot of hip hop culture in there which I really love and giving nicknames is something really common. First attempts were trying to be overly complicated, then I started erasing them and starting from zero again. For the protagonist, Gabriel Arnegeed, I just gave my name the English way, then anagrammed "renegade" a way it could look cool. And for the rest I noticed that going simple helps creating really cool names. Like Norbert Warston, because he is more structured and muscular and his father is in the "Rebel military" called "Rebellic". Then I have this dude called Taisuke Yorker, because even if it's not the earth, it's something really similar to it, and the equivalents to Japan and the US do exist, also Taisuke is one of my favorite dancers.
Let's see nicknames. Vectorblade is a cool one I came up with, for a guy called Martin Kernan (not much of a meaning). It probably already exists but who cares. I really like Headgroove and Miss Sileride tho, one is a girl who loves listening to music with her headphones and wants to become a DJ (her surname and name respectively start with D and J on purpose) and the other one has a missile/looking object propelled with small rockets she rides, it came from a word pun I really liked.
Thank you so much! I am making a manga myself and making up names is pretty hard but this made it a little easier for me.
Super happy to hear that! Best of luck with your manga!
This was helpful, thank you monitor and have a happy new year!!!
I'm glad!! Happy new year to you as well!!
loved the vid will use when i start mapping out my manga
Super glad to hear that! Best of luck with your project!
@@MonitorComics Thanks! I'm Brainstorming on charter designs and I'm just drawing random people and seeing if they fit the character and making tweaks to the design
Absolutely love the inspiration and ideas you give me with every single video, I believe my stories have upgraded dramatically thanks to your tips and truly inspire me to write even better stories in the future, if I may ask, what sort of tips could you give for making plot twists in comics and manga. I love it when certain plot points in Attack on Titan for example have been foreshadowed at the start leading up towards the end, and sudden reveals on certain characters true motives etc, would love to hear your thoughts on it and would be a great help, keep up the amazing work.
Super glad to hear that my videos could be helpful! Thanks for taking the time to watch and leaving a nice comment! I love the plot twists in AoT as well! I have been suggested to make a video around foreshadowing/plot twists a few times, so I am definitely going to work on it soon! Best of luck with your project!
@@MonitorComics Thank you so much, best of luck to you too!
Hi! You’re so close to 35 thousand subs that’s CRAZY good luck! Also could you make a video on character design? I’m having some trouble making good outfits, hair, and faces for the characters in my comic
Same here buddy
I will add it to my list of upcoming topics! Thanks for taking the time to leave a nice comment and video suggestion! I really appreciate it!
Greatly needed this one
Super glad to hear that! Thanks for taking the time to check it out and leaving a nice comment!
@@MonitorComics no prob👍 yeah there are tons of characters I’ve made from 2-5 years ago that I still haven’t named😂
I have 2 brother characters called Grigor and Anarawd, their names respectively mean Vigilant/Watcher and Undisgraced/Champion. Due to my inability to find a name that meant/or referenced hunters in Welsh I settled on Grigor instead because it fitted with his character, in how he's always looking out his adopted sister Victoria Williams (which isn't even her real name btw but instead one given to her the Catholic Church). Sometimes tho I end up with names for characters who just end up getting those names because I wanted to use them such as for example Tristian and Simon who ended up getting the names Tristian Mohammed Ali and Simon Christopher Brown (the second one named as such to reference the author of Purgatory H.C Brown which gave me the inspiration to think up this story).
One of my characters however just ended up looking like a Hattina Lotts so I just named her that for no other reason then it just felt right for her, despite the fact I wanted to give a more meaningful name I just can't change it now because she is Hattina Lotts and she can't be anything other than that. As for my villain character I'm still debating if I want him to have a Biblical name or just to call him Sin and be done with it. As you may have noticed my naming style is just a random mess of I want this and that but it makes the character names in my opinion look more natrual instead of being formulayic and I kinda like it.
I like those names too! It's interesting how your process differs from character to character. It was a very insightful read! Thanks for taking the time to share your process and a bit about your story! Best of luck!
i liked this content anime this info was verey helpful
Next up name for a city?
8:02 as well as this, Bungo Stray Dogs involve actual author names (Allan Edgar Poe, Aktugawa, Atsushi, Dazai etc) along with one of their works as their power name (akutagawa - rashumon). All these people existed (except Naomi I think) but it’s set in modern day
I also recommend from experience fantasy name generators that create names from letters. They're very useful if you want your name to sound a specific way or have a nickname but have to find a matching name for it.
THAT IS A GREAT TIP! Thanks for sharing!
such a good video, thank you sir
Thank you for taking the time to watch!
Thanks, I've been planning, writing notes and scripts all the time to make my manga, but GOD DAYUM, it's hard to come up with names! Thanks for the tips!
I'm glad my video could help! Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment! Best of luck!
The best character name I've ever had came by accident. While I was designing this character that took inspiration from Satan(Lucifer S1 just started so I was inspired), I looked up different names of the Devil and saw that Satan's full name is Satanael. I decided to take the "Nael" and rearrange it to "Neal", looked up to see if its a real word and I found that it means "champion", which was perfect for his personality. Still haven't come up with one that is better.
Neal is a really cool name! Thank you for taking the time to share a bit of your process! That is a great story behind the name! Best of luck with your story!
Wow 😲
I appreciate your help thank you again
Of course! Thanks for checking out this video so early!
Julius Novachrono is probably one of the best names that have been thought off for a character
I was literally just finished my character, and the first video on my recommendation is this.
I want to become a book author in the future but this method can still help me aswell, usually when I come up with names I just think of what my character will look like n give them there names there and for other side/background characters I just come up with names n give it to characters who’d fit more with the name and I often have fun experimenting and changing them aswell
I've got a name for my Mc, pretty unique I think. Something else I've learned is that, while it's less original, you can use japanese words, like one of my characters last names means deep red. And I'm totally chill with that. It rolls of the tongue. But English names can also be great. Also, making your own words is totally cool. One character's last name (I made them) is diamondorio. And then you have plays on words like sisters named rose red and violet blue, but all in all, the names that I find the best can be taken from doctor stone. I love the way that they all sound like they belong together. The only name I dislike is yuzuriha (too long and doesn't make me feel like it fits her at all) I love senku's name. I don't know if this was on purpose or not, but senku sounds like you're saying think in a Japanese accent. I love that. Gon, killua, kurapika, they're all unique and easy to remember, however, every character in that story has a memorable name, causing every character to pop, so nobody does, you can instead have a giorno giovanna, a kurapika, and then for the unimportant characters, have an Emma, Mary, Nico, Sam etc. Giorno and Kurapika will be much more memorable and (bonus tip) you can have them dress more colorfully (like they do) to have them POP from the story. Also naming characters after their personality, you can have some interesting characters like izuku midoriya midori meaning green in Japanese. I've created a character named inujin (dog man) in Japanese. Also names that reflect each other like lemon and lime, Jessie and James, Kinross and ginro.
the name I chose for my main character is "Ki" (still working on a last name) which is the the first kanji for Hope, his great predecessor has the name "Bo" the last kanji for hope. Ki also translated as spirit and energy, also the word for Air, and air symbolizes the spirit and the "vital breath of the universe" heres a lil thingie "J.C. Cooper points out that wind represents the power of spirit in sustaining life and holding it together"
That sound awesome! Love the meanings! Thanks for taking the time to share your character name and your thought process for developing it!
I completely agree with you about not having two characters having similar sounding names.
I had two female characters named May and Mary.
I had to change Mary's name, because I was putting Mary where May was speaking, and viva.
I couldn't change May's name, as I created an older sister named Apirl.
Every single day I regret naming my characters Neon & Nine I could probably write an entire book for each of them on why their names are "symbolic" and "meaningful" but the execution kills me inside
Wow, is that a new intro or has it really been that long since I've had the chance to watch one of your videos? Either way, I like it.
Very helpful video. These are all points that I've learned to use during my years of research and practice, so having them all in one place like this will undoubtedly be helpful for a lot of people.
An extra tip/suggestion that I use when naming characters is selecting an existing name and replacing at least one letter/syllable with a totally different one in order to make new names. It's been pretty helpful.
That's a great additional tip! Thanks for taking the time to share all of that Hollow! My Intro is actually the same, but its funny you mentioned that. I've been planning on either making a new intro or commissioning an artist to make one for me for about a month now. So at some point soon there will be a new intro haha
@@MonitorComics My pleasure, Monitor. Thank YOU for the helpful video.
I'm looking forward to seeing your new intro once you've got it planned and made. I'll definitely miss the current one!
ive been looking for something like this for two years
I usually have semi-hard to pronounce names, but it depends on if the reader knows how to speak/write a different language.
Like my character Lili Dwr, she.. a self-insert (yes, I know people hate those. But it's just for fun) so her name is welsh like my name irl. Usually the people I meet can't pronounce the name, just like how a lot of people can't pronounce my irl name.
There's more of a deeper meaning this name, so if my translation is correct, lili dwr means "water lily" in welsh. Water lilies are very pretty, but are on top of water, which I have a phobia of pools/oceans/swimming. I thought this was interesting, since i plan on having my ashes thrown into the ocean as a fuck you to my phobia.
There's a bit more, but I forgot about it since I didn't write it down.
I generally tend to lend towards themes. In one story, I have different races, humans, elves, dwarves, demons, and pixies. Human names are based on latin, demon names are based on historical figures, dwarves are based off of crafts and stones (Julie-Jewel, Cole), Elves are based off both magical and nature based names, and pixies are only nature based.
In another story, I had to name the royal family, and for that I looked at names used in the British Royal family, and found names I thought suited the character. Zeid for the charismatic crown prince, Yue for the one and only princess with a kind heart and playful nature, and Xander for the wild and intelligent youngest prince. And part of what influenced me to choose Xander for the youngest was that I noticed the Y and Z of the other two and decided I wanted to make it XYZ. On the other hand, their parents are A and B.
I like to pick unique names based on character ethnicity, surroundings or world building rules I set
I find making an idea for a character easier than finding a name. I play Dungeons of Dragons sometimes and I can make a character with a story in a second but takes me more than a minute to find a name. Same goes for my story ones
Very true!! I'm the same way with DnD. Thanks for taking the time to check out this video and leaving a comment!
Eyyy, this is useful.
I'm also working on a Light Novel
Super glad to hear that!! Thank you for taking the time to watch and leaving a comment! Best of luck with your light novel!
@@MonitorComics Thank you
I also like to give my characters middle names and even nicknames. For example, I've one character whose name is Clément Ernest Durand Corbin. He's a friar in a French-speaking fantasy world, and due to this, a lot of folks pronounce his last name as Cœurbon, effectively changing the way his name is pronounced; but there's more to it than that. The last name Corbin means someone with a hoarse voice or black hair, and Clément has black hair. But the reason the change to Cœurbon is so significant is because it's literally "good heart" in French. But then, to add juxtaposition, Clément, before becoming a friar, was a bloodthirsty warrior, contrasting with his name, Clément, which is literally "clement". Add to that, Ernest means "earnest". Basically, I go for names that both align with and juxtapose a character's personality while also giving hints about their backstory.
That's actually really interesting! Thanks for taking the time to share all of that! I like your thought process! Best of luck with this story!
This isn't related to the video context but I would like to give you some advice or constructive criticism if that's okay. I noticed when you were drawing the hair you started with the hair strands. I've always found it to be easier for me if I drew the head first and then the hairline. And then you can decide where to start drawing the hair, how it parts, and so on. I hope this helps :)
All good! I appreciate the suggestion! I'll give it a try in my next drawing!
@@MonitorComics okay :) 👍
When naming characters, especially for fantasy, i like to hide references to (scientific) names of something related to that character. For example:
For a DnD campaign, I was going to play an Eladrin (basically an elf that reflects one of the four seasons in their appearance, in my case, autumn) druid that focuses mainly on healing and support, therefore a harvest motif seemed very fitting. I then searched up the wikipedia pages of some fruits that are harvested in autumn and tried to change and string together two of the taxonomical names.
What I ended up with was a combination of the names Malus (the genus of apples) and Pyrinae (a name for the subfamily of plants apples are in): "Maelo Purinaion"
I'm not even kidding, I have been using the among us colors as the naming scheme for the villains in my dnd campaign. I suck with names, so having something besides bob, Steve, jimmy or translating their character main trait through three different languages is nice.
LOL We love the among us colors!
0:00 My biggest problem with me is that when I come up with characters I don’t usually give them names and just designs so I can’t wait to see this and the next video
This is helpful and I like the tips you provided. I'm currently writing a sci-fi fantasy story that involves historical figures, mythical beings, all in one setting. when it comes to naming characters, I always name my character weirdly where I usually use common names first and put made up surnames that somewhat fits the narrative. I also included titles to make them stand out.
some names I came up with:
Hana Von Trikas the Dragon Witch
Natlus of the Sun
Patri "Patrick" Butterfront
Nakaya Yuki-- maiden of pestilence
Olivia Fischer -- God's serpent
Ryuji "Red" Taglieri -- "Red Warrior"
Guy de Portoley
Odysseus the Hobo
Haydeé Darwish
Yosef the Pajama Knight
Those are awesome names! Your story sounds really cool! Thanks for checking this video out and taking the time to share your thoughts! Best of luck with the project!
The way i make some of my names is by combining other cool named or just typing random words that sound similar to other names and i will take the one i like
When I create characters I always just think of someone I know and use their name, sometimes slightly changing it up
That's a great strategy! Thank you for taking the time to share that tip!
A gift from the gods!
I was litterlt just struggling with this
Hopefully this video was able to help a bit! Thanks for stopping by so early!
@@MonitorComics Yeah it did Thanks! 👍
My character names are mostly derived from the names of the people they are based off but the names i liked the most were Samael Mandela(with samael meaning the angel of death, and mandela part represents his damaged and alter memory) and Maggie Bolt as she is an expert marksman
And then there's the "Only known by their nickname" trope. Even if you're character has the most common pedestrian name e.g. Jack Williams, David Smith, Jane Jackson; you can count on the likes of Jack being only referred to as Sparrow.
Great point!! Thanks for taking the time to add onto the discussion!
even 2 years after the video release im thankfull for it, my biggest problem is that is based my mc of my manga on a existing character, and i changed it a bit in design, but i always thought the only fitting one was the name of the orginal character, now i have a new name. Thanks
Personally i'm trying to create a lot of characters for a story that's sort of inspired by some web series that i loved (and that i continue to love) for example Gwain Saga.
For the character names i don't follow a specific ruleset, if the name represents the character, than it's fine by me!
For example, i called one of my characters Lucy, i called her like that because she's able to create light outside of her body, in my native language "Light" is called "Luce" so i searched for some names that could fit well and.... Ta daaa! Name found!
Can you make a video on how to foreshadow (future) events in/for comics and manga?
It is on my list! Thanks for taking the time to leave a suggestion!
The name that I've came up with that I am most proud of is the name of the main character for the fantasy story I am working on now - Stella Stern.
"Stella" means "star" in italian, while "stern" has the same meaning in german. Meanwhile Stella's nickname is "Star", as she was always the "brightest star" of the class, the "miss perfect".
I really like how the name sounds, it has a nice ring to it. I also thing it matched the character's "stern" (lol) personality, having been raised to become a knight, while also conveying how much of a guiding light she would become to her friends.
On the other hand, this name also reflects her power - the power of light, similar to that of a star - as it is revealed later in the story that Star is a Nephilim - a biblical being born from a human mother and an angel.
Stella is an awesome name! Thanks for taking the time to share your thought process behind naming this character that! It was really insightful! Best of luck!
@@MonitorComics Thank you for your feedback!! Wasn't really expecting you to notice my comment, I'm glad you answered!
Thanks can you do a first chapter tips
I will add it to my list of upcoming topics! Thanks for taking the time to leave a suggestion!
for me i did something half creative, half lousy, i did different translations for attributes to my characters and combined them to make a name, it seems like its lazy but some of the names i have gotten i could not shake because i really connected to it for what the character was like
I like naming characters after things they are associated with or the inventors of things they're associated with
That's a really cool way to go about it! Thanks for taking the time to share your process! If you don't mind, could you give us an example of one of your character's names?
@@MonitorComics There's this one guy Fiedler de wilde who's asscossiated with fire and is named after the inventors of the flamethrower and incendiary ammunition
I use Ryo short for Ryokai, Imani, Kyomi, and Silas commonly throught my prohects. There all based off of fictinal character or customized from real names.
that intro music sounds so familiar
Can you do one on design characters
This is tricky with certain backstories or characters like my MC has no traditional parents, he has his employer and his little siblings. Which means he has no family name, I’ve thought a lot about how I want to to portray this because the world is kinda dystopian to a certain extent so the government doesn’t really care enough about abandoned kids or orphans to give them names or homes. The only reason they are even alive is because of the employer but trying to explain this without using a wall of text is difficult lol
I’ll probably just use some environmental storytelling and show how the government doesn’t really care and I think that will probably get the hint across enough for the audience to interpret how they survived and why they don’t have a family name
Im writing a story where all the main characters have flower based names. The main two are as follows.
Violet Bell - the main character. Blue violets symbolize watchfulness and faithfulness, and thats what Violet is - someone who always stands by the people she cares for, and will always look after them. Additionally, its part of the famous "roses are red, violets are blue" poem. Meanwhile I just chose Bell for her last name because I thought it sounded good.
Rosa "Rose" Farina - Red roses are all about love, and pink roses are about happiness. Rose is a character who lives for love in all its forms - romantic, friendship, etc. Similarly, she's an unbridled optimist, hence the meaning behind the pink rose. Farina is an Italian name meaning "flour," referring to the fact that her family owns a restaurant - the Farina Italian Eatery. Also, part of the "roses are red, violets are blue" poem.
For a character of mine i thought of the nickname “candlelight” and he would be called this because of how weak his powers were
Candlelight actually sounds like a really cool nickname! Thanks for taking the time to share! Best of luck!
I'm planning to adapt a Sci-Fi roleplay story of mine I did with a partner and our two characters. My character is called Aegon Schmidt and I named him that way because of a character called Eygon from Dark Souls 3 and I thought it was a cool name. I looked it up and saw it was a German name. My character's culture is based on German culture, along with it being a common Valyrian regal name in the Song of Ice and Fire world, along with it being short and simple to pronounce, I thought it was perfect to use. His last name indicates his middle class status since he's not of noble birth though his family are wealthy investors.
My partner's character's name is Zelenia because it's a variation of a tragic yet popular folk heroine's name, Helena, and so was named in honor of said folk hero in her culture. There's more to it but it might not make sense if I explain it here. I hope to publish it someday soon.
This is gonna help a lot, because I want to have a simple name, but also one so unique that if you search it the chakra will show up
Super glad to hear that! Thank you for taking the time to share!