How I Chose the Names for My Spy Conspiracy Thriller’s Cast of Characters 

Choosing fitting names is an essential aspect when creating characters for a fictional story. There are many things to consider, many mistakes to avoid making, and a lot of creativity and fun to be had! 

When creating my cast of characters for my spy conspiracy thriller book, The New Dawn, I had a lot of fun—as well as concerns—choosing just the right names for each character. Below, I’m sharing some of that journey with you: My choices, mistakes, and what I learned along the way.

How I Chose My Characters’ Names 

When searching for that special name for a character, I considered many aspects of my choice, including generational popularity, cultural ties, and phonosemantics (sound symbolism). 

Generational Names:

I often looked up popular baby names during my characters’ birth years, especially for the characters who are older than myself. It was a great way to brainstorm name ideas and choose something realistic. 

Culture: 

Quite a few of the characters in my espionage conspiracy thriller are from countries other than the United States of America or are dual citizens. I’ll share a few examples. 

My main character, Caterina Ellis, is Italian-American. So for her, I chose an Italian first name and more of an English surname that is common in America today.

My second main character, André Torres, is Brazilian. Traditionally, Brazilians have three to four names, often combining one or two given names with two surnames. It’s not uncommon for Brazilians to have even more than four names. So in the book, I give André two given names and two surnames. 

Phonosemantics: 

I also chose names by how they sounded to my ear, like what personality characteristics it denoted from the sound of the vowels and consonants. This is purely subjective to my ear, but it aided me in writing the character how I imagine them in my mind. Sometimes I choose a name I think complements their personality, and sometimes I like to choose the name based on how perfectly it contrasts their character traits. 

Now, I had even more naming considerations for other characters, but to tell them here would lead to spoilers, so I’m keeping my mouth shut.

Character Naming Mistakes Not to Make

Copying Fame: 

After settling on a proposed name for a character, I learned to always search the name on the internet to unearth any accidental copying of famous people or already published fictional characters. It’s amazing what I learn when I conduct this search. Sometimes I needed to entirely toss a name out and begin again. It’s annoying to realize the name I liked is already used or well-known in a way that is not profitable for my book, but it’s always better to know early than to be told about the unfortunate coincidence later. 

Name Diversity: 

When choosing a character’s name, I must not only take into account their individuality, but how their name will affect the cast as a whole. For example, two characters in my cast originally shared the first five letters of their first names. This is not a horrible thing, and it is even a relatable occurrence in real life, but when considering the experience my reader would have with my book, those identical first five letters pose an unnecessary reading block. When reading along, it would be easy for the reader to confuse the two names, especially while reading quickly through a tense scene. These two characters shared many pages together, so for the sake of my reader, I retired one of the first names and came up with a new one. 

Correct Spellings: 

As we all know, there can be numerous ways to spell a name, and sometimes a name with multiple cultural ties requires research into the predominant spelling in each country. Another threat to misspelled names is the writing software spellcheck used, requiring me to teach the software to not mark wrong or automatically “correct” my character’s name (with the name Siedenburg, I’ve dealt with this on a personal level). And thirdly, when using a name that includes an accent mark, it was important to double check that I hadn’t forgotten it or pressed the wrong keys and wrote the wrong accented letter—very relevant when using the name André. 

Some Tricks of the Trade I Used

When searching for names with present or historical ties to countries, Behind the Name is the website I ran to. Whether searching for surnames or first names, Behind the Name gave me hundreds of relevant names to consider. 

Baby naming articles, websites, and books are another gold mine. I’ve struggled even thinking of names for characters, so being able to read through a list is a great way to start the ball rolling. I’ve even looked up baby name lists for my character’s specific parameters like birth year or birth country. 

Another valuable resource I used was observation. I did a lot of research for certain aspects of my espionage conspiracy thriller, and through that I made note of names that stood out to me. This is actually how I landed upon André as the first name for my second main character. 

Naming characters can be really fun, but it’s also a challenge to meet all the criteria wanted and not fall into the mistakes I referenced above. I’m quite happy with the names of my cast of characters for my spy conspiracy thriller, The New Dawn, and I’m excited for you to get to know them too! 

What’s your favorite fictional character name? Reply below!

This thriller is not yet published. Publishing journey updates are posted on this book page.