Naming Your Characters (Updated)
This link was sent in by someone who wishes to remain anonymous: Five Tips For Naming Your Characters In Fiction.
Naming your characters when writing fiction can be both fun and frustrating. Some names come to you right away, even before you have any idea about the actual plot of your book. Others are peskier, more elusive. Here are five tips for naming your characters in fiction.
Click here to read all the tips.
Only mildly related to the topic: There are periods when I suddenly become a news junkie. I'm in one of those periods now, and it's been an extended one. It's lasted since September, since the middle of the U.S. presidential campaign. I've gotten quite familiar with the CNN Anchors/Reporters, and I find their names quite interesting: Eunice Yoon, Isha Sesay, Hala Gorani, Rosemary Church, Soledad O'Brien, Guillermo Arduino, Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, etc.
My friend who likes to read over my shoulder is standing behind me (I mentioned him in this post, too, some time ago). He's not a news junkie, but he is watching me as I make the links to the names of the CNN Anchors/Reporters. When he saw Isha Sesay's photo, he said, "Hey! She looks HOT!". And so I say to him again, "Get out of here!" (But I know that he's not the only one who thinks Isha Sesay is hot. :D).
Update: Still on names, what type of nicknames did you bestow, or get bestowed with, as kids? There are emails circulating about how Pinoys have such unique names, like Ding, Dong, Bing, Bong, Ping, Pong, Ting, Tong, etc. (and that's only using the -ing and -ong suffix). I've got a funny nickname myself--Kyu, which means "9" in Japanese, I think (though perhaps pronounced differently), and is also used as a term for the gradations in belt colors in martial arts.
I know my friends from high school by their teenage nicknames. Even if people they meet after graduation know them by other, more respectable names, to fellow batchmates they will always be known by whatever they were christened with in the early to mid-teen years.
The surname is the most common, and the easiest, nickname. Take "Teng". He has a regular first name, but somehow or other, his surname stuck from constant use, and to us he will always be "Teng". Story goes that his wife tried to get batchmates to call him by his first name, but failed. As one batchmate said, "Sinong _____? Wala kaming kilalang ______! Si "Teng" 'yan!" We have a "Ting" too, and as far as we can tell, his wife doesn't mind the name.
"Kaw" in Fookien, when said with the proper intonation, means "dog". One of my batchmates' surnames is "Kaw". Unfortunately for him, just "Kaw", unlike "Teng", would not suffice. High schoolers being what they are, my batchmates added the word "sai" to the end. "Sai" means "sh_t" in Fookien. So, "Kaw-sai", or "dog sh_t". You could imagine the hilarity that ensued when one classmate shouted out "Hoy! Kaw-sai!" at him from outside the school's gate one afternoon at dismissal, not knowing that "Kaw-sai's" mother was nearby, within earshot.
So my batch has these other names still in use: "Fish", "Herbievore", "Kepweng", "Horse", "Gorio", "Gobs" (it's not what you think, but I like how you think :D), "Supot", "Bubu", "Bahu", "Lolo", "Deech", "Andork", "Baron Asler" (a two-faced character from an old Japanese robot cartoon called Mazinger Z, and he was so named because half his face is darker than the other), "Lager" (which suits him fine, 'coz the guy drinks beer like a fish drinks water, though his story is unique in that he was initially named "Laglag", but once we saw how he could down San Miguel Beer, well...). I'm not sure, but I think we even have a "Baog" somewhere in there (or was that another batch?).
For me, the name that takes the cake in my batch is "Ebak". He was so named because his skin complexion was a perfect match for the color of sh_t. You can imagine the puzzled faces of those not in the know whenever all of us meet up in public and we address him as "Ebak". Sometime in the last decade, when many of us were getting married (stuffy and formal occasions, mind you), the faces of our elders and our wives/girlfriends would scrunch up in confusion and even disgust whenever we called him by his nickname. "Kumusta ka na, Ebak?" He's not ashamed of his name, I can tell you that. The man knows who he is.
I bring this matter of high school names up, and consequently updated this post, because quite serendipitously, I received an email today that "Ebak" is being egged on by everyone to take a leading role for our batch in our high school's alumni matters. He's already our batch representative to the alumni office, but we want him to run for President of the Alumni Association. His name is perfect for a campaign slogan the batch wants to use: It's time for change! Vote for "Ebak" Obama!
Naming your characters when writing fiction can be both fun and frustrating. Some names come to you right away, even before you have any idea about the actual plot of your book. Others are peskier, more elusive. Here are five tips for naming your characters in fiction.
Click here to read all the tips.
Only mildly related to the topic: There are periods when I suddenly become a news junkie. I'm in one of those periods now, and it's been an extended one. It's lasted since September, since the middle of the U.S. presidential campaign. I've gotten quite familiar with the CNN Anchors/Reporters, and I find their names quite interesting: Eunice Yoon, Isha Sesay, Hala Gorani, Rosemary Church, Soledad O'Brien, Guillermo Arduino, Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, etc.
My friend who likes to read over my shoulder is standing behind me (I mentioned him in this post, too, some time ago). He's not a news junkie, but he is watching me as I make the links to the names of the CNN Anchors/Reporters. When he saw Isha Sesay's photo, he said, "Hey! She looks HOT!". And so I say to him again, "Get out of here!" (But I know that he's not the only one who thinks Isha Sesay is hot. :D).
Update: Still on names, what type of nicknames did you bestow, or get bestowed with, as kids? There are emails circulating about how Pinoys have such unique names, like Ding, Dong, Bing, Bong, Ping, Pong, Ting, Tong, etc. (and that's only using the -ing and -ong suffix). I've got a funny nickname myself--Kyu, which means "9" in Japanese, I think (though perhaps pronounced differently), and is also used as a term for the gradations in belt colors in martial arts.
I know my friends from high school by their teenage nicknames. Even if people they meet after graduation know them by other, more respectable names, to fellow batchmates they will always be known by whatever they were christened with in the early to mid-teen years.
The surname is the most common, and the easiest, nickname. Take "Teng". He has a regular first name, but somehow or other, his surname stuck from constant use, and to us he will always be "Teng". Story goes that his wife tried to get batchmates to call him by his first name, but failed. As one batchmate said, "Sinong _____? Wala kaming kilalang ______! Si "Teng" 'yan!" We have a "Ting" too, and as far as we can tell, his wife doesn't mind the name.
"Kaw" in Fookien, when said with the proper intonation, means "dog". One of my batchmates' surnames is "Kaw". Unfortunately for him, just "Kaw", unlike "Teng", would not suffice. High schoolers being what they are, my batchmates added the word "sai" to the end. "Sai" means "sh_t" in Fookien. So, "Kaw-sai", or "dog sh_t". You could imagine the hilarity that ensued when one classmate shouted out "Hoy! Kaw-sai!" at him from outside the school's gate one afternoon at dismissal, not knowing that "Kaw-sai's" mother was nearby, within earshot.
So my batch has these other names still in use: "Fish", "Herbievore", "Kepweng", "Horse", "Gorio", "Gobs" (it's not what you think, but I like how you think :D), "Supot", "Bubu", "Bahu", "Lolo", "Deech", "Andork", "Baron Asler" (a two-faced character from an old Japanese robot cartoon called Mazinger Z, and he was so named because half his face is darker than the other), "Lager" (which suits him fine, 'coz the guy drinks beer like a fish drinks water, though his story is unique in that he was initially named "Laglag", but once we saw how he could down San Miguel Beer, well...). I'm not sure, but I think we even have a "Baog" somewhere in there (or was that another batch?).
For me, the name that takes the cake in my batch is "Ebak". He was so named because his skin complexion was a perfect match for the color of sh_t. You can imagine the puzzled faces of those not in the know whenever all of us meet up in public and we address him as "Ebak". Sometime in the last decade, when many of us were getting married (stuffy and formal occasions, mind you), the faces of our elders and our wives/girlfriends would scrunch up in confusion and even disgust whenever we called him by his nickname. "Kumusta ka na, Ebak?" He's not ashamed of his name, I can tell you that. The man knows who he is.
I bring this matter of high school names up, and consequently updated this post, because quite serendipitously, I received an email today that "Ebak" is being egged on by everyone to take a leading role for our batch in our high school's alumni matters. He's already our batch representative to the alumni office, but we want him to run for President of the Alumni Association. His name is perfect for a campaign slogan the batch wants to use: It's time for change! Vote for "Ebak" Obama!
posted by pgenrestories at 3:13 AM
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