I’ve spent hours and sometimes days picking a name for a character in a story. Sometimes I’ve written a whole book, still haven’t been satisfied a name, and changed it again.
It’s hard to find something that’s just right. Hitting on the right name is key. It has to be convincing. It has to have the right “feel” and sound, and associations. It has to be historically and culturally authentic. It can’t be too much like other character names in the story: same initial or same ending. It can’t be too long because I don’t want to be typing it out over and over again. There are so many things to consider.
I always thought it was just me: wasting time, lacking inspiration, and being indecisive. But then I googled “character names” and was surprised to see how many websites were devoted to this very topic. It turns out that this is a common problem amongst writers.
You start out thinking it should be easy. But it’s not. It’s almost as hard as naming a child.