: How to create good character names? I find that a problem that I run into quite often is the fact that I can't create names that sound real, but also have a nice ring so that they fit

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I use a few methods for finding a name for a character - I like to have names that have the right kind of sound and / or also have the right kind of meaning behind them. Though it's not always possible.

I quite often start with going to baby naming sites and searching for meanings to find out which names come up. They often let you filter by country or similar, so you can get the right 'kind' of name.
I'm rather fond of just entering words with the right meaning into Google translate and picking some of the different language options to see what the word sounds and looks like. Sometimes I might use that as a base and change it slightly to sound better.
Scientific names - like Katniss, scientific names can often have nice meanings that people might not know right away but will give you kudos once you're a best selling author and people start hunting for that sort of thing : ) Also it gives you a nice warm smugness to know that stuff's there.
Maps - I'm British and British place names are very often weird and wonderful. I'm sure this applies across the world. You can pick a country that has the right kind of sound and feel for your character and zoom into Google maps and browse the words.

Hope that helps!

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Personally I avoid picking names based on their "meaning" it's lame and highly unoriginal. Also names don't affect your personality at all, so why would it define your character.

What I do is just collect names/surnames when I read a name somewhere I find interesting I just save them in a document. Then when I need a name for a character I just browse through them.

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Sometimes I like to look into the inspiration for the character, the characters background story, or their personality. For example, I have a character in my novella who is on the LGBTQ+ and I borrowed his last name from a long dead gay author.

Another character I named is based on a greek tragedy that has become a regular trope in many manners of fiction.

Some characters names can be puns, or a clever play on words that I like the reader to figure out, and give them a laugh.

You could also look up at a list of names, and surnames from different countries.

A slightly more morbid approach would be to look through the obituaries.

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If a you're looking for a real-world name, and have a general feeling of what you're looking for, you could try using a name recommendation tool. Rather than going through long lists, you can type in a few options you are considering, and then browse a focused recommendations list.

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I too am having problems with this.

My way of solving the problem is to start with the setting. Is your plot set in a real place? If so, you can look for names from that region. If you like, you can do some research about the origins and meanings of those names, so you can be sure they fit your character. I usually use www.behindthename.com/ for this.

If you're writing fantasy, you can still use real names. Diana Wynne Jones did this all the time. "Harry Potter" is also a regular name. G.R.R. Martin horribly misspells names (Eddard, Jaime) but you can still recognise them. Those methods work particularly well if your fantasy novel is set somewhere that is inspired by a particular RL place and period.

If you're writing science fiction, there's no reason for earth characters not to use the same names we do. Names like "John" and "Michael" have been around for several thousand years, they aren't going to disappear.

For somebody who is non-human, or deliberately not any of our cultures, it might work best to device some naming convention, and then follow it. It might be, for instance that male names always start with 'S, end with 'k', and have five letters, while female names follow the pattern of 'T'-consonant-something'. (That used to be Vulcans in Star Trek: Spock, Sarek, T'Pau, T'Pring.) At the very least, you can pick some phonemes that would be more common, so it would sound like all the names are from the same language.

You can use Latin to create names that don't sound too foreign, and have a hidden meaning as a genius bonus. Plant names and flower names are also great (Katniss being a famous example), and you can use them for hidden meanings as well.

Or you can just take a Scrabble set, put it all in a bag, and pull out letters at random until you find a combination that you like. That has worked for me too, when all else failed.

You should remember that you don't have to enforce a "One Steve Limit" - several characters can have the same name. It's realistic, if you think about it.
And you can forget everything about meaningful names if you like - names are given by the parents, to a baby who has no defining characteristics yet, and half the time they don't know what a name means. At least, that's how it works in RL.

Most important, don't let the lack of character names stop you from writing. You can always use temporary names, and run Ctrl+r when you come up with something better. Frodo used to be 'Bingo' in Tolkien's early drafts, and Aragorn started out as a hobbit named 'Trotter'.

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I would begin by looking at what the character does, either for a living, or in their spare time. Many modern surnames (and some first names) are based on occupation. For instance (black)Smith or tailor (Taylor). The second thing to look at is attributes describing the person long (tall), short, swift, etc.

By the time you have written a complete description of the person, several adjective-names should jump out at you. Choose the ones that create the best name while describing the character.

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