Naming Your Characters: 8 Tips to Help You
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- Опубліковано 28 кві 2016
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![BAD GUYS: 12 Tips to Help You [Chibi Joker]](/img/n.gif)
Making a story
10% writing
30% thinking
60% thinking of characters names
If you're only devoting 40% of the time to writing/thinking, I'm afraid you're not going to end up with a very good story.
markcrilley it's a joke my dude
markcrilley why not, what if the story takes forever to pump out and 40% is sufficient
although tbh I do just look up names that are culturally appropriate
Felix Rivera look at star wars felix
the original movie was supposed to be all 9 incomplete scripts but half way threw they told old georgy that its way too long so what he did is he took the middle cut it down to three parts fyi it wasnt even finished when they started shooting but they had a basic story and thats what they went off of
i mean darth vader wasnt even supposed to be lukes father until they got to the scene when lucas suddenly changed the scene from lukes fathers force ghost appearing to vader revealing himself to be lukes daddy
also side not did you know ahsoka tohno is in episode 3 in a deleted scene she gets killed by grievus but it hot cut because it would have rose more suspicions to who she was then adding character development to anikan
also on a seperate different note theres a high probability that mark hamil will be the only original member of the starwars team able to be in episode 8 since carrie just passed and han spoiler died
of course i mean other then chewy and the droids
Don't forget about thinking of the Title!
"Nobody cares what their name is. You could name them John Smith..."
*The Dr looks up* "Yes?"
Omg I love that show. Lmao
TheBoundFenrir ahhhh yesss
@Victoria Suarez Depends if they're a sweet little angel but end up as a feisty brat with an evil agenda. You could make any name work somehow, but I agree you gotta convince the reader.
@Victoria Suarez
I am inclined to disagree here.
Alice is not an inherently good name. It basically just means "nobility"
It just depends on whether or not it is thematically consistent.
There is, for example, the option SugarieDreams mentioned. Another interesting option is having the character named Alice be insane which is also quite popular due to "Alice in Wonderland"
Another strategy for fantasy names is to pick a word or phrase that suits your character and throw it into a translator, and click every language available until you find something that sounds nice. Of course, you can also modify these words too.
I.e. Let's say you wanted a character who was very petite and kind and is growing from a young girl to an adult. You could decide to name her after a butterfly, but Butterfly might not sound right. In French, papillion means butterfly, so you might name the girl Papilli.
That's just a suggestion.
InspiredAspirin hehe papi
Zombiemanx2 Hispanic man who raises s family of butterfly herders. The butterflies are magical and are a driving point in the fantasy story. The butterflies shoot energy beams to defeat their enemies and help overthrow the monarchy. There. Story.
Aww papilli sounds so cute!
*types name theme into Google translate*
*translates to japanese*
*posts comment in bold type on UA-cam* ;)
*asks why we are writing in bold*
*bold*
*the boldness*
*woah*
Came for the thumbnail, stayed for the advice.
Thanks.
+Sultan Its clickbait, but in a good way :)
9: After settling on a name, do some research to determine if your chosen name (when spoken) is slang for a body part, bodily function, or an expletive in another language. At least a language that your work is likely to be translated into :P
Gotta check XD
For example that Fif name happens to be a mean word for gay in French xD Mark is talking about French with that fif written in front of him and nobody noticed xD
+Emilie Poirier Wait... I'm French and I don't even know that! xD
I feel bad now x)
+Wolfeen That's because it's used mainly in Quebec. So unless that's where you live don't feel bad. XD
Wolfeen Like Star Surfin Studio said, it's not all French people who say that, but stil... Pretty funny to me :p
Vader is a play on the German word Vater, which means father. Funnily enough my mom was the editor for your Realism Challenge book:)
Btw im not saying vader was inspired by the dutch word.
no, no he was right. consider "darth sidious," which features the exact same corruption on the word "insidious," as "vader," has to "invader." i really dont get why this coincidence is so common, since there isnt really much evidence to suggest that there is ever any other such convention in the entire series.
especially since star wars was actually only supposed to be a new hope, there wasnt actually a plan beyond that, they just went by the seat of their pants.
Luuke, ik ben je vader
Vader is litterally “father” in dutch.
As a dutch lad it kind of ruined the suprise.
George Lucas said Vader wasn’t inspired by dutch/german, he just came up with the name randomly
Darth Vader actually means 'Dark Invader', and Vader is 'father' in Dutch
Midnight Madness also in George lucas's school someone had the last name "Vader"
Midnight Madness The father thing explains so much...
Midnight Madness I was wondering about the connection with "father," I thought it was like Vater in German
The father thing was actually a coincidence, they hadn't planned that far by the release of a New Hope.
you mean "they" hadn't planned that far after already writing the first three books? that makes no sense man.
names comic protagonist Marko Crillex
best name ever ,now where have I heard that before?
ohhh I'd read that
+JD Afroninja from Saga :0!!!!!!!!
+JD Afroninja Maybe you've been in a swimming pool.
+Terence Bain JR 10/10 Character already
vader actually means father in dutch
oh wow
Ook Nederlands?
It gave away EVERY THING!!,
Kind of
+Biggest Nightcore fan!! Waarschijnlijk wel
+bas van der werff lol spoilers man..
Writes a story. For simplicity names every character Alice, Bob, Charlie, etc. Finishes story.
Starts agonizing over naming these characters.
If the story is good enough, those names will be fine. Similarly, all the amazing names in the world can't save a bad story. :)
I was mostly joking)
If you don't know what Alice and Bob is you can google it.
But seriously, I doubt it's possible to write an entire story without some inspirations about characters names.
markcrilley is it wrong to have a happy go lucky backstory for a wannabe hero type character who onlys sees the world in black and white in a moraly grey story come to think of it never mind it just hit me i know what im gonna do
or not tell me what you think pls itd be a great help seriously
Yeah the names don’t have to be complicated. The story I am writing now, the main characters’ names are Samantha, Zeke, John, and Izabella. But to be fair, I did had a character named “Winsolosabbaphobic Farjonasdoolatimar” in one of my stories that failed
@@maddiechapman7564 how did you think naming a character *Winsolosabbaphobic Farjonasdoolatimar* was a good idea?
when you said Hank, it got me thinking of King of the Hill
John Perez i was think breaking bad hank
I was thinking of hank from finding dory
Jocelyn Chua same
I was thinking of beast and ant man lol
i was also thinking of the best propane seller in texas
For me it's just
Take a word
Translate in Latin or Grec
AND BOUM !
Lusus Naturae
I hope I'm not the only that just instantly translated it back :D
Binary TheYounger i cant be the only one who saw that it was from homestuck
MaKaRa _ Ur not alone ;)
Awful.
Parvus Gallus. holy crap you're right
it's beautiful
When all else fails...behind the name random name generator.If it doesn't give you good names at least it gives you names to modify
What I like to do when naming my characters is find names that are affiliated with their personality or just something about them. For example, in a story I'm currently developing, there's a character that uses a type of magic that gives her the ability to summon wolf familiars to fight for her. After doing a bit of poking around for names, I stumbled upon "Accalia" which is Latin for "She-wolf". So, that ultimately became her name.
Also, yes, my name is Landon
As a German "Accalia" does not have a meaning in (modern) German, it might be Germanic though.
Anyway, it's a cool sounding name :D
Hatake Kyasarin OH! Pardon me, it's not German, it's Latin. I remembered wrong.
There, I fixed it
Yin No need to say sorry, I just thought I'd point it out just in case you wanted to base something important on the "German" part :)
Hope I didn't come across as rude^^'
I tend to name my characters something unique or unusual.... Usually I'll name them after a unique word, a foreign word, or a gibberish word that I feel fits their character.... I rarely use common names
I do the same.
I love taking names and just write them different. So if someones name ist 'dean' I call him 'deen' for example. 'michael' to 'maikel' XD
+H34db34ng I literally do that all the time. I have an OC who's name is pronounced "May" but I spelled it "Meiye". Meiye's best friend my other one OC whose name is pronounced "Annie" but I spelled it "Ahniee". I don't know what's wrong with me...
sHANIQUA.
JessieIsThyName I think it's very cool that way. Otherwise it would be boring to just name your character annie -.- it's too common, it has to be special
I find that characters in video games tend to have more uncommon but memorable names like:
Samus Aran from Metroid
Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy 7
or even Link and Zelda from The Legend of Zelda.
I try to do the same when I am trying to name my characters. Something uncommon but could also be a real persons name. Cloud may be a bit out there but I think it still could be someones name. Heck, my cousin named his son Spartan!
Thinking when the father is introducing his son...
Father:Hey, I want to introduce you to my son
Friend:Oh,Okay....
Father:This is sparta.
Yeah names can be out there, he'll my name is Mars, and my sisters is Athena. (My parents love mythology.)
+Ultrag453 man i would love to have your parants!
+Adhwa Hazim KATERIMEIKA RIKAZIKIRIN Zulkifli LOL
I just use Latin worlds
My name isn't Alexander ,I'm rich,
In my dreams
"I know there are people watching this video named Alexander..."
REPRESENT!
Mark Crilley's handwriting is fantastic!
+PhantomDrawing Really??
+markcrilley since I have my characters from a different world. I think of syllables that fit them. Base on their best traits and abilities. Liaxeni is the main character in my story, it sounds feminine. I Feel like the xeni part of Liaxeni gives the hard bit of her name, I feel like it makes her sound like a girl that can fight really well and that is true. Lia is what reminds me of light.
+markcrilley
I think that it is fantastic too ^_^
+markcrilley Is that your normal handwriting? I also write in very clear printscript and I always found it weird. :D
I need dragon ball z type of names like piccolo and pickle I need pun names
Wait, wait. You made Brody's Ghost? I LOVED THAT COMIC! I never finished the series but holy crap it was so good!!!
Thank you! ^^
20 minute video to name a character? or you could just name them all Bob like I do...
😂Bob
+Omar Rangel Bob sounds fine to me i know a nice person with the name bob
what about girl characters
+Omar Rangel bob 1, bob 2, bob 3, and......steve.
lol
How to name a character
Do: Name it something good that represents the character
Don't: Coldsteel the Hedgehog
"When inventing a fantasy name, try to make a name that can only be pronounced one way."
*cough*HOMESTUCK*cough*
Most of my name's are derived from backwards words, and Latin words in which I mix two or more Latin words together, taking out a few syllables/letters, or just use one. I also end up putting random syllables of different words from different laguages together also...Then there are times I just make up random names not based from anything.
But I would definitely recommend using Latin words also.
Can you give some examples of names you've come up with like this? Sounds interesting.
Hatake Kyasarin Sure! For example, Calaer, Luxros, Vitreus when combining Latin words. My more random names are something like Fial-Terr, Hanav Kenilar. I also don't have names based off of real words like Uvir and Mituroi ((combining a Japanese and English word for "future")). My backwards word names are Revlis and Ezorf.
yullenlover1000 Neat :D
I especially like the "latin" ones (they always have a nice ring to them).
Thank you for telling me some^^
Hatake Kyasarin Thank you very much and you're very welcome! I'm glad you like them!
You my good sir just earned a new subscriber.
Thank you!
No problem!This stuff is really gonna help me out when I'm making my own characters.
When I'm trying to think of names, random words or names that doesn't exist suddenly pop up in my head
If it sounds nice and fits the character then it's immediately the character's name
But because of that, most of my characters have strange names
Yay! I got a perfect name for my witch character!⬇️
Melanie
Ya know, with this knowledge you could easily write a story where the villain turns out to be Melanie, unbeknownst to the reader till the very end. Because of the impressions names give, no one would expect that twist, especially if it's a good one.
So, uh, yeah, nice choice? ;)
Esther Wen good joke!
Monroe?
I also take into account the way the letters look together. To me the way the name looks also plays into the feeling of personality the character has.
For example, I like the way Emory looks apposed to Emery, and Vale vs Vail.
I usually look up name meanings if I'm struggling
I don't know about anyone else, but I think about the language characteristic that the person is from. Especially for fantasy, because like elves have different language patterns than dwarves, dwarves are different than humans and such.
I love watching your videos. Love when you do landscapes. I enjoy them so much. they are so interesting! ! but then all of your videos always are! your advice is awesome! !
+Sarah Longshore Thank you Sarah :)
+markcrilley "Agatha" has always been a evil sounding name to me. Why? I honestly don't no why..
I like how you talked about the sound of names creating a certain feeling about a character. I remember playing Danganronpa and as soon as I heard the name Mukuro Ikusaba (who is known as "the Ultimate Dispair") I was thinking "man, they just sound evil"!
that's a really good explanation.. i'm going to replay without adblock
Thank you Victor!
markcrilley your videos are the best I've become a lot better at drawing thanks to you 👍
Thank you for teaching beginners like me to draw manga. I love your books and tutorials. I can draw better then I have ever had after reading your books.
Thanks for the advice! I'm actually currently trying to make a whole book of ideas for some comics I'm trying to make, so this is helping me out :)
I only know of one person named Landon - Landon Cassill - who is a NASCAR driver.
I think one of the most important things you can do when coming up with names for characters of any type - human, fantasy or whatever - is to keep a repository of possible names somewhere in a Word Document or something. If you think of something, WRITE IT DOWN somewhere. You may not end up using it for your main characters, but at least it's something you can use for a later character or even a background character. Writing them down will also give you a chance to examine how they look on a page, as well as how they sound; you can come up with alternate spellings or pronunciations when you have the chance to examine them.
A lot of people seem to ask about how to go about naming characters in a science fiction or fantasy setting, or characters that aren't human. For me there's a lot of different ways I go about it. For instance one of the more random ideas that I have is that I babble a lot; I'll think of a language that I feel relates well with the the character involved, and I'll ramble out names in a borderline stereotypical way that sounds similar to that language. So for characters that have a vague Bantu or Swahili or other African language, I would come up with names like Vahtani, Kiwati, Kavi, and Toma. To be less random I'd do research into that language for names that sound similar, or have meaning that relate to it. ... I sometimes also take typos or errors I see in places - like in closed captioning on television - and I'll use them.
Another thing I tend to do - that I think a lot of people do - is repurpose common words to be names, similar to how you have characters like Cloud Strife. For instance a lot of my human characters are named after modern names for countries, cities and continents since in my story the world is recovering from an apocalypse. So I'll have people named London, Anaheim, and Asia. And when it comes to aliens, well, they don't speak English no doubt so there's no rule saying that they might happen to have a name that sounds like a random word in our language; so I'd have names like Straye, Obsidian, Dozer, and Stain.
A lot of this comes down to research, but it also has a lot to do with personal preference and discretion as to what sounds/looks good. And it's also important to not treat the naming process as an end-all-be-all kind of deal. You can change the name while you're working on developing your story. Sure you have to have it set by the time you publish, but you don't have to have it right off the bat. All of my main characters have gone through at least five name changes; that's totally okay to do.
I agree. This comment made my day because I have a list of 'character names' in my writing that scrolls down forever. I love inventing new names based on sounds that I like.
I also regularly write really long youtube comments.
'What can I say?' I babble a lot.
Beautiful artwork, like always.
+Anna salmon Thank you Anna :)
i really like this guy because he really shows you how to draw and he explains his tips unlike other people cut out most of the main details of the drawing itself
I really like that someone doesn't need to be an artist to learn from your videos. Although I do make art and draw characters, I mostly do creative writing and one of my biggest problems is picking names for the characters. For my current story, I chose Mirielle as the main protagonist's name to convey her timid nature and soft-spoken characterization using the soft syllables in the name. Thanks for making these video Sa!
Oops, ignore the "Sa!"
+Midnight Blank Glad I can help :)
Me
Serious story hmmmmmm name them after the greek elements.
Light hearted action story hmmmmmmmmm. name them after colours.
comedy stories.... name them after genitalia
Hi my name is Dick Smith and I'm here to party
+Micah Warner LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO IM DONE
+xxアニメフリーク Harry Johnson
+CatFish21sm hey, my name's Clit!
LynxAnimation...what do you do if the story is about overal morals
im naming my characters by night and day
i did this by accident but it fits there characters so well i decided to keep it that
fyi there names arnt actually night and day well two are very close but not exactly
Hey Mark! I was at the comic book store for Free Comic Book Day and I saw Brody's Ghost the Collected Edition :3 it wasn't off price, but I was like "Must... support... the creator.." can't wait to start reading! :D
+Emily Yanzer Thank you Emily!
Mark Crilley, I love your videos and you've inspired me to do more of what I can do. And you are the reason that I'm going to be in an academy of visual arts even though I'm only 14. And I wish you good luck for your amazing work.
I'll call my character Mr. Potato!
Im gonna name my character namey mc nameface!
Pretty good name huehue
ayyy I know I shouldn't be all like "omg bruh my name's Melanie and he said is what a coincidence that's friggin awesome!!" but... omg bruh my name's Melanie and he said it what a coincidence that's friggin awesome!
You mentioned bad band names, and I might be going off on a rabbit trail here, but I love the band "Skillet." Never understood why they were named that. I was listening to a recording of one of their concerts, and the lead singer said something to the effect of "We are called Skillet. Hate the name? So do I. Buy the album anyway." XD
+Crystal Cali I feel like there almost a trend toward awkward-sounding names at some point. How else to explain a band name like Bowling For Soup? ;)
markcrilley
Yeah. I mean, it works well enough to grab people's attention, so why not? :D
+Crystal Cali One of the weirdest ones I've heard of is "Butthole Surfers". I like Skillet too, saw them live at Toad suck days a few years ago. Was walking around the carnival and thought that music sounds like Skillet, they were there playing.
+Ron Beck cool. I haven't been as to see them in concert. They've only been around my town once that I know of, and I had other plans.
Mark I just want to say that you are so skilled with speaking! You always drive the point home and never go off on a tangent (and if you do, it comes back around so briefly yet fluidly).
I agree with your stance on EVERYTHING! It's so nice to hear someone agrees. For example, there's a character in my project named Stanley and I can't help but take a step back and think of it as the name of an older gentleman, but I feel as you get to know more about him (he's a teenager), what might be an unlikely name begins to grow into a lovable one.
Anyway, thank you for this video!
It isn't even fair how amazing your work is!! I wish one day I'll be as talented as you!!
Funny thing I have about naming characters....every name has to somehow tie into part of that character's personality or what they bring to the story. I spend a lot if time researching to find a name that fits. :)
I like what you say about syllables and the flow of the name. I hadn't considered that before.
Thank you Sir! Looking forward to the live streams!
Me too.
In regards to tip #6, I always like my fantasy names to look like fantasy names, so I have a tendency to include silent letters and apostrophes with names like Ljolrei, Xilv'rr, Kii'Ze, and the like.
I'm super overjoyed that you made this video..... Thank You! :)
Has to be my favorite 8 tips of all time thanks mark!!
+ExiQtioner Slaughter Wow thank you :)
I would watch the live stream, but stupid school :'(
Thanks for the advice. I really want to make a manga book/comic book one day. I have bought Mastering Manga and Mastering Manga 2 :)
+Katie!!! !!! watch it sat. and sun :)
+ART by pinsetter1991 Wow how did I not think of dat xD
+Katie!!! !!! actually that wont work lol, i thought the 4th and 5th was on sat and sun but its not. you will probably still be able to go back and watch the recording though, it just wont be live
Same, I live in France and the only part that I may see is wednesday :(
+ART by pinsetter1991 Ok thx :D
When it comes to people mispronouncing my character's name, I felt I could remedy it by having a character repeat it phonetically in his introduction.
main character: "and the name's Raqu."
random thug: "Rah-koo? Sounds made up."
+Raqu nice idea!
+Raqu ~ Thug #2: "Ragu? Isn't that a spaghetti sauce?"
+ImFrelled obviousy!
+ImFrelled lol, sounds legit.
+ImFrelled ~ papyrus: SPAGHETTI!?
Mr. Crilley, thank you so much for this. I have been writing a story and it has a lot of characters. I couldn't get names as fast as I could create them. Thanks to this, I have little trouble now.
Thank you, Mark. I needed a video like this, great video.
#4 is a biggie. You don't want a bunch of characters whose names all sound the same, otherwise people will have a difficult time remembering them. Contrasting names can convey a sharp contrast in character traits as well. For me, names become especially important for characters who aren't going to be very fleshed out (which for me is usually because they're dead at the beginning of the story). I have a character named Nial for example. I chose "Nial", because it is composed of soft sounds, and my character is a healer. But it's a name associated with strength and courage, because of comparisons to real-world people and mythology: thus, appropriate for one of the members of my heroic band. I came to a point in the writing where I needed a name for Nial's recently deceased father, and I wanted to convey the sense that Nial was different from the rest of his family in certain ways. After a bit of thinking, and a few false starts, I hit on the name "Caradoc". It's also from a Celtic language, but Welsh instead of Irish. It's three syllables, instead of two, and full of hard 'k' and 'd' sounds. It also uses pure vowels, followed by consonants rather than a blended vowel. This character was a warrior, not a healer. A hard-driving, brash, earthy man. A man more likely to solve his problems with his fists than with words. When directly contrasted with the name Nial, this name did a lot of the characterization work for me: highlighting the difference between father and son that it otherwise would have taken me paragraphs to show.
#8 NO! it really does matter. The name needs to fit the character! Descriptive names are fine: but they need to *sound* right. For example I have a character named Mavrion in my story. It's simply a physical description. But I chose this name because it conveyed the idea that he is elegant and sophisticated, and a bit dangerous: before my reader even gets to see the character. The name fits him because of how it sounds, not solely because of what it means. A Thesaurus and Google Translate are good tools to use to find names like this. type an ordinary adjective like "light" into Google Translate, and then put it into different languages until you come up with something that sounds good. Or look in your Thesaurus for little-used synonyms to common words that might make good names.
Whenever creating a story, I pick a culture, research it, and base the setting, design, or characters around said culture (however, sometimes I'll make an entire cast of characters purposefully different cultures). So I pick the best word to describe my character, shove it into Google Translate, and keep going through synonyms of the word until there's one that sounds slightly like a name, alter it a bit, and viola.
I love your advice videos, I love to listen to them while drawing or painting! please keep making them they are helping me improve! thank you :)
Hey Mark I just wanted to tell your akiko series was one of my favorite series when I was a child!
So talented. You deserve more subs/likes
Yukino Neno
is that a good name for a girl?
shes calm and hyper for what she loves. Born in winter thats the Yuki part
tbh she becomes a god its a hard and long story to tell it all.
Perfect.
It's good but improve the repetition of Nino so change the surname probably
Agreed, decide whether the surname or given name is more important and alter or scrap one. Remember that her entire family (assuming she has one) would be known as Yukino as well. Unless you told us the name western-style.
Sounds interesting I would love to read this book
ua-cam.com/video/9ko5jkkhTXk/v-deo.html now that's some nino action right there
OMG MARK i was searching evrywere for your channel!! You helped me ALOT when i was little!!!!
Love your painting in this video, and great advice
Darth Vader is actually derived from the dutch and german words for father (vader and vater respectively). So "dark father" :)
Hey Mark, if you got the opportunity to have one of your books animated, would you take it?
I know I would
+Paris Lambat yea
when i name my characters, I usually name them based on personality and/ or something about them physically. Like my character Amethyst has amethyst colored eyes and my character Rin (translates out to be cold/ distant in Japanese) who doesn't really like people all that much and keeps a distance from others.
just finished watching the live stream awesome work Mark, and even though your face may be old your voice is epic
I might actually consider making a web comic when I get the right software, and I have a lot of names for my characters. They just seem to come naturally. For ex., My main protagonist would be named kiske. It just fit right
So, my protag in my WIP is named Crodeus. He's ambitious and intelligent, but is a bit of a control freak. The story is set in a fantasy world based heavily off of ancient Rome. Do you think the name fits?
Definitely.
It does :)
Yes!
I'll do my best to watch those livestreams! I just gotta pump through finals week.
Also really thankful for this video, I find it very difficult to settle upon a name for a character.
I just wanna say, Mr Crilley, that you've been a big inspiration to me, between you and my AP Lang teacher I've realized that writing stories and drawing comics is something I desperately wanna do with my life. So, I wanted to give you my sincerest thanks for all the videos you've made, and all the videos you will make, I don't comment often, but I've been watching your videos for a few months now and they've truly given me the tips and tricks; as well as the skills I need to truly make my "dream" come true. So, Mark, Thank you, for everything you've done for us.
Is it odd that I tend to avoid naming characters after people I know personally. It gives me the freedom to do whatever I want to them without a friend or family member seeing them and saying "Is that what you think of me?" lol. I'm not sure if they'd think that but I've always avoided using their names because of it.
In fact I have a character who gets killed in an old story of mine who happens to have the same first name as good friend of mine who I've known for about a year. I wrote that character's story before I met her but it's a little awkward and I don't really bring attention to it lol.
I would want to name characters something made up so in the unlikely event that the story becomes super popular kids with normal names won’t suddenly be mocked like that one kid in my elementary school named Mario.
I have CCA: Crippling Character-naming Anxiety.
this was made exactly when I needed it, thank god.
I always loved coming up with names!Especially ones that fit a chatacters personality. But one thing I love is finding names that cleverly contrast to themselves, but still make sense to the character in doing so. Like my oc Hope Shadow.She is a dark and brooding character who likes to go it alone (Shadow) but even if she only realizes it when pointed out to her, she gives people Hope!You did a GREAT job describing character names by the way!Keep at it! :)
Haha my mom was in the room and when you said melanie she was like "yes??"
Tolkien once said that the name always came before the character; so he'd name a character and then figure out their personality based on their name ... judging by the way his "characters" came out, take from that what you will...
A lot of what you 'teach' with your videos of your own opinions on basically all the subjects you talk about from story building, names ^, world-building, etc. is right on par with things I've always believed in and agreed too and oftentimes thought I was the only one to think such because I am self-taught both with drawing, design, and writing. it makes me happy to think that so many things I believed in with said subjects are also what a professional artist like you is teaching. this is my first time looking up youtube videos on artistic & writing tutorial-like vids as I'm trying to get a webcomic out soon. I really appreciate your videos, so thank you.
EDIT: Basically speaking on things I both believe and have learned through trial and error and also practices and techniques I do. Giving definition to things I thought I came up with or rather didn't realize were actual practices. Both artistically and as a writer. Thanks again!
Wow, thanks for this great advice! Naming characters has always been a bit of a struggle for me, and this helps a lot. Thanks again! =D
If you know how your characters parents are, that can give you an idea about how they might name their kid(s) For example my mom is creative so she made up names out of certain words. she took the word Brillante(means brilliant in spanish) and put an "l" at the end of it and it ended up as my name "Brillantel(Bree-on-tell)". My lil sister's name is made up of the words "enchanted" and "fantasia" ending up as "Chantasia(shan-tay-sia)"
"It makes you mouth do certain things" I'm done... *im done*
This was really helpful, thanks Mark! :3
20mins so much good advice it felt like an 8mins video good job Mark thanks for making all your videos love them all
+Eric Sharp Thank you Eric!
+markcrilley Darth Vader means dark father
I once "made up" the name Akira when I was like 9 or 10 and then I came to realize it actually existed and I´ve seen it many times. It has been 4 or 5 years since then and I still sttuck with that name for one of the main characters (I´m almost 14 now)
Lol, when I was 7 I made up the word "Delaware", and used it to name a race of winged squirrels. Sorry everyone who lives in Delware.
+baldrick Triffid 😂😂😂
I something similar with the name Takeshi, who was a humanoid lizard that was part of some really obscure tribe. When I found out it was a real Japanese name, I was shocked
+The Red Army Lives On did something***
Best character name ever: Slartibartfast.
Love your videos, Mark! Always super helpful! :))
Your art is Beautiful! I hope one day I can be as good as you one day. Thank you for all the tips they really help.
Point 5 was very usefull to me. I have a character based of a Latin legend character called "la llorona", which in english would be literally "the crying woman", so I mixed the words crying and woman, and ended up with the name "Craimo"
Wath do you think she is?
*what
A crying woman...
I always make fantasy names, I always write things on my hand when I think of a good name idea, usually at school. In terms of 6, I've done it intentionally with two characters in the same story, but in different ways. One is called 'Ine' and they always have their name pronounced differently, and the other is officially called 'Zed', but they always spell their name differently to annoy people. This is what I spend my life doing XD.
Your name is really cool
The 'Crilley' part reminds me of Acryllic - like in acryllic paints: reflecting on your artistic side. Awesome video!
Thanks for the video! Planning a trip to Japan myself!
My main character of a story I'm writing, Bys, is a Dragon so of course he doesn't have an ordinary name like Kevin, but it's actually kinda a funny story how the name chose me! My younger brother used to have this computer game which I then enjoyed but it was a pain to make an online account or change it after he just stopped playing so I was stuck with his username which is his initials. Then people began to know me as Bys and a friend of mine who is now my long time girlfriend created the original design of the character and called them Bys, so the name just stuck.
Without explaining the story too much, Dragons in Bys's world have elemental powers but Bys can't use his powers himself, he relies on the help of 6 split personalities to do his magic for him. I decided to give these split personalities the name of the latin word for their elements: Ignis, Aqua, Aer, Terra, Lux, and Umbra. Then I introduced Echo as one of the antagonists within Bys's own mind who is a distorted copy of what Bys could be without morals.
Bysthedragon that sounds really interesting! are you writing it or making an online comic? I'd love to know more tbh
At the moment I'm writing the story before I start illustrating the comic, but I am making concept art mostly of individual characters which are posted on my Deviantart.
that's so epic! is your deviantart the same as your user?
Yes it is, Bysthedragon
then I'll be sure to check out your art :)
Do you consider watercolour a layering type of thing?
+William Tse A fundamental rule of watercolor is to never cross an area more than three times. So no, watercolour is not a layering type of thing since you will most-likely color an area only once.
+WinterinBerlin thanks
i never really thought about my characters name this deeply but now I know how to make my story more better thx mark😁
thank god the live stream is right after school where I live..I really need to watch it.
Here is a method I use for thinking of last names:
1)take a word fitting to the character. 2)type it into google translate until it sounds good 3)if you want, alter the translations a little (eg. leaving out the last letter)
Note: If you want to do this for a family's last name, make sure the word fits all of them and all of the family's first names
How to find a word to translate, for a last name: 1)Maybe use their job/roll in society. 2)A trait that defines this character 3)Have it be a word describing their relationship with another character/ for example two people having names that mean opposite things
Example: Three people in my book are related and they all have a significant part in fighting the villains and have fought a lot in their life. Therefore I used the name "Trodaiche" meaning "fighter".
A place in my book that is incredibly poor is called "Argentum" meaning silver, as everyone who was born there has silver hair, therefore i called the villain, who is responsible for this poverty and also extremely rich "Aurum" meaning gold.
At least that's how i do it, I'm sure that there are many ways :)
Darth Vader actually translates closely to Dark Father. "Darth" is supposed to be similar to "dark," and "Vader" is Dutch for "father", though it is pronounced "Fah-Der" and not "Vay-Der" in the actual language. It's also similar to the German word "vater" (Pronounced "Fah-Ter") and was chosen because of the fact that Vader is Luke's Dark Father. I actually looked that up a while back, so I'm glad you brought it up. Gives me a chance to show off. Though the "Vader->Invader" thing is an interesting thought as well.
Solid advice, as always, Mr. Crilley.
+legendarymudkip2096 Thank you
+markcrilley A master of the craft being streamed and for free?!?!?! Is this a dream?!?!?! A fever dream?!?!?! Have I gone crazy or is this a miracle happening?!?!?!? XD
P.s Thank you for your advice as always :)
Thank You Mark for making my day!