Unlocking the Secret Power Behind Character Names That Could Make or Break Your Story

A well-chosen character name can reflect their personality.

I recently had a discussion with two writers about the question: How important are character names? The question had arisen because one writer was working on a screenplay in which the names they had originally ascribed to a couple of characters no longer fit. That said two things to me:

• First, it’s a good thing because it shows that their characters were coming ‘alive’ in the writing process, evolving into their own ‘self’ beyond the monikers which had been tacked onto them.
• Second, it evidenced the answer to the question: Character names are very important.

As an example, consider these two female names:

Hortense
Kymberly

Don’t they suggest different personalities?

Nicknames are particularly revealing. Here’s something I read recently in Marc Norman’s book “What Happens Next” about the great screenwriter and playwright “Paddy” Chayefsky:

“This chesty nonnegotiator was born Sydney Aaron Chayefsky in 1923 in a tough Bronx neighborhood, a bookish child, short and unprepossessing. ‘Paddy’ was a nickname he picked up in the army during the war. Roused for kitchen duty one Sunday morning, he insisted his commanding officer let him off to attend mass. The officer pointed out he’d made the same request the previous morning, Saturday, on ground of being Jewish. ‘Yes, but my mother is Irish,” Sydney replied. The officer shrugged, said, ‘Okay, Paddy,’ and the name stuck. Chayefsky liked the two-fistedness of it, not so much for who he was was for who he wanted to become.”

Chayefsky was a strident, even bombastic personality, hell-bent on maintaining creative control over his scripts at all costs — definitely a Paddy, not a Sydney or Aaron.

Good names can suggest some primary value, core essence, or narrative function of a character. Since our written interview today is with George Lucas, consider the names in Star Wars: A New Hope:

Luke Skywalker: Stuck as a youth on the dusty plains of Tatooine, yearning for adventure, then finally getting it as a Jedi — in effect walking through the sky. And, of course, the obvious connection between…