: 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

@Kevin153

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People will name themselves and one another. It seems to be more or less hardcoded into our DNA. Once you have a concept of yourself, you have a concept of something other than you, and the need for a label to distinguish the two emerges.

You could do worse than to check out the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which among other things spends quite a bit of time with groups of characters who are all physically identical, and formally known only by their ID numbers. They develop individual personalities, decorate their armour to distinguish themselves from one another, decorate themselves with tattoos and hairstyles, and they adopt nicknames - either chosen by themselves, or by their 'brothers'.

These nicknames often come from elements of the clone's personality or experiences. For example:

CT-5555 is known as "Fives"
"Heavy" prefers heavy weaponry
"Echo" tends to repeat orders for everyone
"Dogma" believes what his superiors tell him, and toes the party line
"Chatter" was a comms tech
"Fixer" was a tech specialist

etc...

Your clones would likely be in a similar situation - If there's an easy pattern in a person's number, that might be referenced. If they show a particular interest or aptitude in some sphere of endeavour, that would give them a name. Some unusual experience could be referenced ("Crock" if someone once stepped on an alligator, for example).

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