Titles and naming conventions

Though the saying is to never judge a book by its cover, there are plenty of additional factors that pull people in and persuade them to pick up a book over the billions of others they could choose. And names are also clever ways of introducing meaning and differentiating different objects or people from one another!

As there are a LOT of different types of writing (and even items/characters or other things within texts themselves) that can be titled or named, there’s also plenty of creative freedom for you to brand things with. Some conventions and foreshadowing techniques are also included in some really clever names, so let’s delve into some examples!

How to come up with names

Depending on the type of name you’re looking for, or even what you’re naming in the first place, there are plenty of options for coming up with ideas. A lot of the time, finding inspiration will lead to a brainwave and the name making itself known!

Here are some general ideas on coming up with names:

• Look at a phone, baby name book or even an existing novel or films for character names
• Use a name generator site – there are plenty out there for characters, settings or other purposes
• Consult other languages or root words for inspiration
• Look at real-world examples of similar settings or people, if applicable to your writing – for example for a book loosely based on an existing person or a real-world setting that you’re basing your environment on

Characters

There is no absolute rule or formula for coming up with character names, but there are a few common practices that you may find useful to know about. Alternatively, you could also forego the rules too – just like naming a real person, it’s all up to you!

Some writers ensure their character names make sense in context – for example, in historically-set pieces, these names will be the same as were historically used, or make sense for the time period. Authors can find these names from researching, like by reading old census information or other methods.Oppositely, unique names may also be used to make the central characters memorable and stand out from the crowd.

Settings

Often, authors will choose a naming convention that fits with or opposes the theme of the story. For example, in the Twilight series, Stephanie Meyer uses real place names for the most part, basing her setting in and around Washington and its neighbouring cities, but the vampires inside the text are anything but everyday!

In the case of a whole new world, where there are a whole heap of different cultures and communities, it could be interesting to think about links to certain aspects of the community and the names of their settlements. For example, urban areas could be named after industrialisation machinery, parts or inventors – and economies based on mining could be named after precious metals or other things associated with mining.

Poetry

Often in a pamphlet or book of poems, the reader will come face-to face with the contents page and a list of all the titles. This is their insight before they even start to read any of the poems properly, and in a collection there may even be a theme to group all of the poems together, so the titles may all revolve around this common theme.

A common idea is to have the title run into the poem itself, by having it read as if it were the first or last line of the poem. One of the main draws of a title is to make the reader curious about the poem, or even to give them some clues about the imagery or scene about to be covered.

Books, short stories and novels!

Often, the decision of a final name is so difficult to reach that many writers employ the use of a working title until they’re happy with their final decision. There are so many factors to consider, and depending on the book or story’s genre, whether the title includes a subtitle or any other factor, there are also plenty of conventions or popular formats to shape a title to.

Length – Some books use shorter, one word titles, like Wool by Hugh Howley or longer ones, like The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

Informative – Often book titles will let the reader know what they’re about to get into, such as A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin which immediately paints the scene of a battle-heavy fantasy – some titles are intriguing but don’t give too much away, like This Is Not A Novel by David Markson, though once you pick it up you soon discover what that’s all about!

Subtitle – Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley is often shortened, which is criminal considering the additional context the subtitle provides – but of course, the full title is less catchy. These are the types of things to be mindful of!

What’s in a name? A lot, it turns out!

That was a brief runthrough of some common book, setting, character and poem names, and some of the rationale behind naming them. As I love to say, this is still a decision that’s ultimately up to the writer, but knowing some common rules and practises may be of help!