A friend of mine recently asked me how I come up with names for my novel. I thought it was an interesting and thoughtful question that didn't have an easy answer. One of my favorite things about writing is the naming of things. I've always found the origin of how things are named fascinating, so I'm pretty methodical about my process. Some names come easy, and some take a little more effort and time. So, what's in a name?
The line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet goes- "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet,". Juliet is making a statement conveying that it is the thing that we love and not the name. Yet rose is such a perfect name. The word just rolls off the tongue, it is pleasant to the ear and you can almost smell one just from the reading or hearing of it. A beautiful name for a beautiful flower. Surely Shakespeare realized the importance of a name, he came up with some great ones for sure. Heck, he even made up words that we still use today to name concepts that had yet to be encapsulated in the language of his day. Words like bandit, critic, dauntless and lackluster.
I get to have all the fun. The names that I come up with are for worlds, people and creatures that are millions of lightyears from here. I would consider myself a name collector of sorts, in that I often find inspiration for them in strange and unusual places. Like the end credits for major motion pictures, interesting things that I read, places that I drive by on road trips, and even from people that I know. In one of the writer groups I belong to, I always jump at the challenge of helping those asking for assistance with the naming of things. To me, coming up with names is fun.
It's important to me that names are easy to pronounce, sound natural, bear some sort of meaning and are hopefully memorable. The name for the main character in Star Skimmer, "Xander Maddox" comes from my youngest son's middle name and the last name of a favorite comic book hero from my youth. Sometimes I take inspiration from friends name's that I like (I ask them first, of course.) and tweak them a bit. Other times, amazing names will just pop into my head and I write them down in my notebook to use as needed. I am always on the look out for interesting and compelling names. A lot of the names you'll find in my novel come from a lifetime of collecting and are often barrowed from inside jokes or things I've used before like role playing games or short stories I've written in the past.
Creature names are a bit more serious to me. I do some major research and experimentation when it comes to a planet's ecosystem and especially the animals that make up that system. A good example of this would be the "hexafell" - a six legged furry tree dwelling mammal from the first planet that Xander visits. Hexa is a common prefix that comes from the Greek word hex meaning six. Fell is an old English/Germanic word that means hair or pelt. Putting those two words together to name the creature took a lot of research, but what a name. Almost all of my alien plants and animals go through a similar process.
When I take the long drive through the middle of nowhere Illinois to pick up my son, the names of the towns and counties grab my attention. A few have found their way into my novel as the name of some of the planets. Diveron, Gnarm, and Mendota are names of planets in Star Skimmer that come from that long drive.
I put a lot of thought and energy into the names I use in my stories and they have to meet my own stringent, specific criteria. If you've ever read a high fantasy novel and stumble over some of the names, you'd understand why I take great care in how I name things. It's important to me that the flow and tempo of the story is as seamless as possible and that the names don't get in the way of that. What's in a name? To me, everything. I hope you all find the names that I have come up with for Star Skimmer as fun and fascinating as I do.
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