As some of you may or may not know, I am very selective when it comes to naming my characters, and that's mainly because I want to avoid falling into the One Steve Limit trope (yes, ironic, given that my biggest signature character is named Steve); with so many different characters out there having the same or similar names, you may not always know of which character is being discussed when mentioned by name. Who is “Felix”? The Cat, or Unger? Who is “Oscar”? The Grouch, or Madison?

That being said, this leads me to an observation I've had for a number of years . . . have any of you ever noticed that in works of fiction, certain names seem to be commonly given to certain characters with certain personalities? For example, have you noticed how a lot of dopey/mentally inept characters tend to be named “Ed”? You've got Ed from ED, EDD N EDDY, Ed from GOOD BURGER, Ed the hyena from THE LION KING. Or how a lot of really arrogant characters tend to be named “Frank”? You've got Major Frank Burns from M*A*S*H, Frank Costanza from SEINFELD, Frank Barone from EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND. This is yet another reason why I'm so picky-choosy about names I give to my characters, because I don't like to perpetuate such a phenomenon (though, to be fair, I once named a character “Clyde” in an old student film of mine for the very reason that “Clyde” seems to be given to characters similar to Eds).

All kinds of qualities tend to be associated with certain names.
Fred: hapless, can't get a break
Joe: the everyman. Average and dependable
John: Mr. Plain vanilla
George: George Carlin had a routine about that name. Georgie Porgie?
Bob: Hey. That guy can fix anything! Bob's your uncle.
Hank: tall, thin and kinda slow.

All kinds of name associations.

What are the differences between a Pat, Patti, Patty, Trish and Trisha? (For Patricia),

Like the difference between a Jenn, a Jenny, and a Jennie? Whether it's short for Jennifer or something more exotic? (Genevieve, Guinevere, or even Jennessia?)

I only wrote sci-fi (and one sword and sorcery) comics, and the think I roughly care about is the “ethnic” sound of the name, for example:

- in the sword and sorcery one I found a page with etruscan names and used modified of that for all the characters, to give a sense of a common culture

- in the giant robot one, I used Romanian names. Originally I wanted to use Russian names, but Russians have weird naming conventions, so I went with Romanian ones that have the usual name/surname one.

marcorossi wrote:
I only wrote sci-fi (and one sword and sorcery) comics, and the think I roughly care about is the “ethnic” sound of the name, for example:

- in the giant robot one, I used Romanian names. Originally I wanted to use Russian names, but Russians have weird naming conventions, so I went with Romanian ones that have the usual name/surname one.

I did a comic set in the Soviet Union with a Russian named cast (and two Chinese) and had a bit of fun with the naming conventions.

One Russian got the Chinese names backwards.

The names were taken from War and Peace and my family. Some Russians dropped the naming conventions during Soviet days and some non-ethnic Russians don't use them. There were plenty of non-native Russians forced to use Russian names and speak Russian by Russian regimes.

Looking back I wish I'd put in some East Asian Soviets like a Kazakh.

Just occurred to me that in my time in forums this is about the fourth time I've posted in a thread about names and naming like this. A lot of times it goes off into world creation and making up languages. After all in fiction one is free to create their own naming conventions.

I tend to, best way to describe it, Suda51 my character names so they are easier to find through searches and stand out.
The only time I use “normal” names is for side characters or when it make sense in a story.

Furwerk studio wrote:
I tend to, best way to describe it, Suda51 my character names so they are easier to find through searches and stand out.
The only time I use “normal” names is for side characters or when it make sense in a story.

I created a character way back in 1985 that I later played around with for a novel who eventually ended up in one of my comics. Her main thing was vengeance. Flash forward to 2023? A video game designer who was probably on one of those sites where I discussed her used the name in his game and the character is all about vengeance.
A bunch of my other “original” names are quite real in other languages. You really can't make up anything. Even Tolkien took his names from historical sources. Pretty obscure sources but real nonetheless.
Don't fool yourself into believing you have something totally original. Chances are it's not. And you'll find out and tge disappointment can be huge.

No, take something and make it yours. So anyone looks for it? It's a real name and this character by Furwerk studio. Yeah, and Bravo1102 copied off them. But that's what that guy does. You know he actually claims to have coined the word femoid like ten years before it appeared anywhere else?

Because my name is so uncommon, as a kid I would make little comic strips about a character named, drumroll please: JOSEPH. But no, I won't be sharing those old comics anytime soon, because all I did was basically completely ripoff Rocky and Bullwinkle by sending Joseph on a bunch of serialized adventures that were described by a Lemony Narrator along the way, and each strip would end with those alternative either-or end titles. Yeah, I was ripping off Rocky and Bullwinkle long before Chris Savino tried to make it cool.

This is an old thing, it's like in American things people with certain names like “Piondexter” are nerds, “chad”, “Brad”, or something short like that is an entitled, rich beef-head, “Mario” is a sexy tough Italian dude, “Tiffany” is a stuck up rich girl, “Shonequia” is a sassy black woman…

I think it really behoves us to go against that. Name your nerd “Chad”, name your muscle guy brute Percival.

Ozoneocean wrote:
“Tiffany” is a stuck up rich girl

There literally is a comic character who is a stuck-up rich girl named Tiffany. . . .

From the syndicated comic Luann. Tiffany is because of the jeweler Tiffany's. Very old correlation. It's a classic trope character.

Sometimes life imitates art because the girl named Shonequa may become sassy because it's expected of her.

Yup, that doesn't surprise me at all, it's an old sterotype haha!

I just think it's not a good idea to go with stereotypes too much.
I mean… you don't want to call a barbarian warrior Patty Davies, or a sex supermodel Bruce Campbell, so better to go with stereotypes there haha XD

between growing up with asterix, manga, and new zealand strip footrot flats, i struggle to make myself use basic anglo-saxon names.
maybe the closest ive gotten recently is ‘toohey’. which is apparently an irish surname. but the character isnt irish, theyre supposed to be a character representing the website twitch. my reasoning being if you say twitch slow enough, you get ‘toohey’ and then add ‘ch’ for the chan suffix, and you get something that sounds like ‘toohich’.
i wonder sometimes how my readers put up with my sense of humor…

Furwerk studio wrote:
I tend to, best way to describe it, Suda51 my character names so they are easier to find through searches and stand out.
The only time I use “normal” names is for side characters or when it make sense in a story.

Haha, “Black Knight Direction” comes to mind. Even the short-lived side characters have the most strangely cool names. I am attracted to unique names which feel like the character in question. So that's my ethos. However, to be fair, I don't have much diversity in my work so far (young artist ig). I've only been creating Japanese characters due to my inspirations. Perhaps I should immerse myself into the culture in order to find the names appropriate for my characters. Or, maybe I could be bold and redefine the name by associating it with an unfitting character. Maybe it's all about being intentional about these choices huh?