Making up names

[Shadow Major]

Okay, this may sound like an odd question, but I couldn't help wondering to myself, "What are other people's ways of doing this?" That is making up names for characters. If you do make random names up that you thought of yourself, how do you do it? For example, I just think really hard and think of two syllables from different words, then rearrange those syllables, maybe even add extra letters and finally put the word together, to form something like Gikora (the name of a character I'm producing). So, what are your thoughts?

[PJCzar]

The name of the character needs to fit their up bringing and (usually) their ancestry.

Since you are probably going to make more asian characters then American or European characters I wont be able to help much.
To name most of my chatacers ill take 2 friends names, say 'pierre durring' and 'jaime campbell' I then switch last names and now i have 'pierre campbell' and 'jaime durring'. I do this as a way of honoring them. Of course doing this you might not like the names that come out so you can always just search up a huge list of names and figure out some sort of way to randomize it and go from there.

There is a difference with western names and asian names in that most if not all asian names are words with meanings put together someway.
See an example of what i mean here: www.japanese-name-translation.com/site/japanese_baby_names.html

While most western names, like mine for example, paul, are just chosen because of the biblical characters. Samuel, John, Peter, are base names while there are always derivatives of these, Jim for example is from john.

There are also mythological characters you can take names from or derive new ones. An example we have used on this forum is 'Trake Largo' a character created by calibermengsk for our collaborative comic that we all contributed to. Trake is a derivative, whether caliber knew it or not, of Drake which came from 'duck' (as in "quack quack" ducks) in a northern european tongue i think. Largo is spanish for Long in spanish, hence why one of the florida keys was named Key Largo, because its the longest of the chain, or something.

You get the idea right? i hope so cause i feel like i over explained.

and just a side note, personally, for the exotic characters I try to do names that are made up and have no meaning. Komi, my female character in my non-existant comic series 'Old Capital' IS a japanese name, like she is japanese but it has no meaning. Its a frankenstien of 2 words , i dont remember what but probably something lame. lol

GOOD LUCK, names are hard.

[Shadow Major]

I understand where you're getting at. I kinda decided to stop using Asian names for my characters since my manga isn't based in an Asian country (although some of them could have said names). As you stated in your post, I "search up a huge list of names and figure out some sort of way to randomize it and go from there". That's pretty easy enough; however, the hard bit is when I have to think up names for characters in my manga that are from a different world to Earth, and that's not only people; tribes, special powers, animals and so on.
Oh, and thanks for your post by the way.

[PJCzar]

www.abooks.com/alien/
thought this was interesting

[saitogarama]

I am in the way of Shadow Major, in fact Saito Garama, the name of my main character, i created by putting together "Salt" and something with "rio", i have removed the t and r, and it was easy, i knew not really, i have had 11 years at those times, it was a real name, but i am proud to have been the my mind to create it.

[Caliber Mengsk]

I just kind of add syllables together... but I don't really give names to my characters...

On real character name I came up with was Izuru (From an idea I had for a manga back in high school almost 10 years ago XD "Fairy Queen Izuru" would have been the name. Didn't actually get to drawing the character, but it's got an extremely basic plot line, and hasn't been done before. O-o Maybe I should finish it out more.)

EDIT:
600 posts! WOOT!

[kischii]

I made two names for my characters, Efris and Aldrin, based on two different things;
Aldrin is named after Buzz Aldrin, because I watched a program with him the day I created this character and Efris sounded like it was something cool and wild, which would suit this character.. But sometimes I just get my names from the net or make them up :3
Even a name like Krrrarerhgh would sound outer-space like to me, since the aliens could pronounce it different than humans in the story. Or zzzhorgh XD

[Crombie]

You should name your characters after food. I see a lot of people do this, and it's quite humorous.