: Re: How to deal with nameless characters? In the novel I'm planning the human characters that inhabit the world are all clones of each other. Man and woman. They aren't given names when born, instead

@Debbie451

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Your characters may not have names, but they have to have some identifiers.

Other examples in fiction:

Star Trek's Borg use designations which specify where each drone (individual) is in the hierarchy of its group, and where that group
is attached to. Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 01
means that this drone is the third most important (9 of 9 is the
most) but her specific task is teritary to the lead drone (so not
super critical), and her group is attached to a specific location
(Unimatrix 01, the center of Borg "society").
Larry Niven's Kzinti
are addressed by their family relationships and then jobs and have to
earn a name.
In Ayn Rand's novella Anthem,
individuals are called by a combination of a word plus a number, and
are raised in collective groups. Each individual refers to him- or
herself with plural pronouns.
In Ira Levin's This Perfect Day, people are using fewer and fewer
names; there are something like four names for men and four for women
when the story starts. The protagonist's actual name is a string of
characters, but his nickname is "Chip."
I haven't read it, but in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale,
the protagonist is "Offred," meaning of Fred, belonging to Fred. Handmaidens are all given designations like this.
In The Bees by Laline Paull, the characters (all actual bees) are
from various groups named after flowers and then given a number; the
protagonist is Flora 717.
In The Force Awakens, we learn that stormtroopers are stolen from
their families as children and raised in groups, and given only
numerical designations. John Boyega's character originally had the
designation FN-2187; it's Poe Dameron who later gives him the name
Finn.

People will come up with ways to address one another. You as the author need to figure out how to delineate your characters so the reader can distinguish them. Nicknames, shortened versions of lengthy alphanumeric strings, epithets like The Gunslinger, The Doctor, the man with the thistledown hair — just be consistent in how you address each individual, and you'll be fine.

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