Reading the Obituaries and Naming Characters

All right, at my age reading the obituaries can get a little scary. After all, I am 62 and many of the deceased are close to my age. However, I do not let he scary part stop me from looking at the obits and finding names for characters.

The obituaries, like cemeteries, can be very good places to find character names. The way I do it is to find a first name that strikes my fancy and then pick another last name for the character, if I am going to give the character a last name.

If the character is for a fantasy story, I seldom give them last names. Instead, I pick a town they come from or a career. I use a different method when naming characters in science fiction stories. Those I often give last names, but I spell the names in an unusual way.

In addition, to using the obits and gravestones to find characters names, you can use spam messages. Simply pick one of the names in the sender line or read enough of the message to find either a first or a last name for the character. I always pick a different last name for the character rather then using the last name the goes with the first name in an obit or spam message.