Naming Characters: My Two Favorite Baby Name Books

Once in a while I come up with great character names right away and the names stay the same throughout the entire novel or story. But most of the time I spend days, even weeks, trying to find the perfect names. Usually my character names end up changing somewhere in the writing process. I sure do admire those writers who claim that the perfect name, and character to go with it, just falls into their head like magic! That’s not how it works for me. I have several ways I choose character names, which you can read about in this post: http://lauramarcella.blogspot.com/2011/04/n-is-for-namely-naming-names.html?m=0

I never before used a baby name book, though I know many writers do. So last summer I finally bought two excellent baby name books that I LOVE. Why two? Both were too perfect and I couldn’t choose one over the other. Each book had different features I wanted, and together they’re the ultimate tool. So after nearly a year of using these books, which have given me the perfect names for my characters, I think it’s about time I share what I like about them with my favorite writers and bloggers. That would be YOU!

Buy it here

Baby Names Made Easy: The Complete Reverse-Dictionary of Baby Names by Amanda Elizabeth Barden

What this does: The names are grouped into 50 categories based on meaning: Animals & Insects; Astronomy; Beautiful & Handsome; etc., etc. For example, if you’re looking for a name that means “lucky,” you’d head over to the Good Fortune, Luck, & Prosperity category and find separate lists of both girls and boys names with a fortunate meaning. Furthermore, the index lists all of the names in the book by girls and boys. So if you already have a name you like, such as Laura, you can search it in the index and find Laura on page 58 (which is in the Flowers, Trees, & Things That Grow category).

Pros: 

• The book’s structure: how clever to group names by meaning! You can easily find the perfect meaning that fits your character.

• The origin is listed next to each name, which is great if you’re looking for a specific ethnicity.

• Variations of each name are included.

Cons: 

• No pronunciations.

Buy it here

The Baby Name Wizard by Laura Wattenberg

What this does: Each name includes pronunciation, a popularity graph, nicknames, variants, and my favorite thing about it: a short list of “sister” and “brother” names that go great with the name you like. So if you’re interested in the name Laura, this is what it looks like:

Laura (LAW-re)

Popularity: #183 (and graph)

Style: Timeless (more about this below)

Nicknames: Laurie, Lori, Lolly

Variants: Laurel, Lauren

Sisters: Rebecca, Amy, Christine, Lisa, Teresa

Brothers: Patrick, Stephen, Mark, Timothy, David

Pros: 

• There are 55 lists for making it easier to find a specific name. Looking for timeless names? Biblical names? Irish names? How about surnames as first names? Maybe you want something androgynous, or perhaps names with the letter x? Yup, you’ll find lists of girls and boys names in all those categories and many more.

• The sister/brother lists are excellent because it suggests names similar to the one you’re looking for. Often I’ll have a character name I like, but I’m not completely convinced it’s the one I want. I look it up in this book, see what the sister or brother suggestions are, and there I might find the perfect alternate. 

• The pronunciations. Love that!

Cons: 

• No name meanings.

• No origins next to the name (there are several ethnicity lists included, just not all).

Why I like these books together:

Baby Names Made Easy has the name origins and name meanings, and it's brilliant to group names by meaning. The Baby Name Wizard has pronunciations, lists of alternate suggestions for each name, and specific lists of various kinds of names. Together, they’re the perfect character name reference. If I already have names I like, I look them up in The Baby Name Wizard for the alternate suggestions to see if I like a similar one better. Then I’ll look it up in Baby Names Made Easy for meaning and origin to see what fits. Or if I have no name ideas yet, I’ll look through Easy and write down ones I like, all the while noting their meaning, or I’ll look through Wizard’s lists and then check the meanings in Easy.

I wish the authors would collaborate and make one ultimate name reference! But I like having both. Each book is fewer than 400 pages and is about the size and thickness of a trade paperback, so neither will take up too much room on your bookshelf or desk. 

If you need a baby name book for character names, I highly recommend both books. Just want one? I can’t recommend one over the other because they’re both fantastic! You’ll just have to compare them in the bookstore and decide that way. But I’m warning you: that’s what I tried to do and ended up getting both books. So gooooood luck with that! :)

How do you find the perfect character name? Do your names stay the same the first time or do they change? What’s your favorite baby name reference book?

Wishing all of my USA buddies a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend! A special thank you goes out to all of the men and women who have sacrificed and who are sacrificing everything: the veterans, the active, the angels. You are superheroes. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Have a wonderful weekend, Zigzaggers!

Monday Quote Day!

Write every day. Write what interests you. Write for the child inside of you (or the adult, if you are writing adult books). Write with honest emotion. Be careful of being facile. Be wary of preaching. Be prepared for serendipity. Finally, I would remind you of something that Churchill told a group of students: Never give up. Never give up. Never, never, never give up.

{Jane Yolen}

Writing and reading is to me synonymous with existing.

{Gertrude Stein}

The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.

{James Michener}

My characters are quite as real to me as so-called real people, which is one reason why I’m not subject to what is known as loneliness; I have plenty of company. 

{William S. Burroughs}

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means.

{Joan Didion}

Whenever I am writing, or more accurately, whenever I have written, I feel better and more at peace as a human being.

{Rick Moody}

Become a good listener. In order to write believable dialogue, you need to listen to the conversations of the people around you—then try to imitate them! Keep quiet, listen only, and let other people to do the talking for a change. You’ll be surprised how much this will improve your writing skills, and how many people will think you’re a really sage person when all you’re basically doing is spying on them.

{Meg Cabot}

I can’t think of a reason not to write. I guess one reason would be that nobody was buying my books. Come to think of it, that wouldn’t stop me. I’d be writing anyway.

{Walter Mosley}

Have a great week and happy writing, Zigzaggers!

Monday Quote Day!

All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.

{E.B. White}

Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art.

{Gore Vidal}

You are not a hundred dollar bill. Not everyone is going to like you…or your story. Do not take rejection personally.

{Meg Cabot}

When I'm writing, I write. And then it's as if the muse is convinced that I'm serious and says, 'Okay. Okay. I'll come.'

{Maya Angelou}

I have a love-hate relationship with the writing life. I wouldn’t wish to have any other kind of life…and on the other hand, I wish it were easier. It never is. The reward comes sentence by sentence. The reward comes in the unexpected inspiration. The reward comes from creating a character who lives and breathes and is perfectly real. But such effort it takes to attain the reward! I would never have believed it would take such effort.

{Elizabeth George}

You cannot use someone else’s fire; you can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first believe you have it.

{Audre Lord}

The myth that we must have 'time'–more time–in order to create is a myth that keeps us from using the time we do have.

{Julia Cameron}

Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.

{Jane Yolen}

Have a great week and happy writing, Zigzaggers!

Monday Quote Day!

Today I must write a paragraph or a page better than I did yesterday.

{Ernest J. Gaines}

That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don’t want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don’t enjoy doing it. I’m not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences.

{Gore Vidal}

Believe in yourself and you can achieve greatness in your life.

{Judy Blume}

Language helps develop life as surely as it reflects life. It is a most important part of our human condition.

{Jane Yolen}

If you’re feeling hampered, I highly recommend this: writing without a net, writing without everyone else whispering in your ear. Not because the genre is hot, not because you want to be taken seriously, not because you feel like you should write something. Write what you want, write how you want.

{Allison Winn Scotch}

The true novelist is one who understands the work as a continuous poem, is a myth-maker, and the wonder of the art resides in the endless different ways of telling a story.

{Muriel Spark}

Write the kinds of stories you like to read. If you don’t love what you’re writing, no one else will, either.

{Meg Cabot}

I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.

{Mother Teresa}

Have a great week and happy writing, Zigzaggers!

Reflecting on the 2013 April A to Z Blogging Challenge

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

The 2013 A to Z Blogging Challenge was a lot of fun! The hosts did a super awesome job. Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who visited and commented! I hope you enjoyed reading my A to Z posts as much I did putting the author tidbits and quotes together and that you learned something new about your favorite author or found new authors and books to read. I discovered many wonderful new blogs and writing buddies, and I hope you like the posts I have in store for you now that the blogfest is over. :)

Highlights 

Best of all about the blogfest was YOU! Thank you so much to my new followers and to everyone who visited and commented. I appreciated every single thoughtful comment and enjoyed visiting your blogs and getting to know you. Congratulations to all of you who participated! 

I LOVED that we had a way to categorize our blogs this year. I wish more people used it, but I think it was a good idea to have it optional to keep everyone happy. So thank you for finally doing that, A to Z staff!!

I was a minion this year, recruited by the spunky L. Diane Wolfe. I was given a section on the linky list to keep an eye on, and twice a week I checked out those blogs to make sure they were posting. I’m glad I could help out! 

Mystery writer Clarissa Draper always has a clever, completely original theme, and this year's was code-cracking, brain teasers, and puzzles! I was really impressed with how she had something fun for each letter of the alphabet. Only a couple were easy-peasy, but most of them were very tricky and required brain power I haven't used since college. So thank you, Clarissa, for having another awesome theme and forcing me to exercise my brain! :) I can't wait to see what you come up with next year!

Lowlights

Comment boxes in which I had to type in my name, email, and blog link. Oy. That got tiring after awhile. Also, some bloggers didn’t turn off their captchas. Though it was annoying, I still posted my comment anyway.

Overall, it was a fantastic month. I’m looking forward to next year! THANK YOU SO MUCH to founder Arlee Bird and the entire A to Z Blogging Challenge staff. Your dedication and hard work is greatly appreciated, especially since I heard some of you had difficult things going on in April. My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your families, and I hope the days ahead are brighter for all of you. 

What are your thoughts on the 2013 April A to Z Blogging Challenge? Will you be participating next year? 

Have a wonderful weekend, Zigzaggers!!!

Screen-Free Week Happening Now! (with Quotes)

If we could follow the slogan that says,'Turn off the TV and open a good book' we would do something of substance for a future generation.

{Gordon B. Hinckley}

What will you imagine, create, EXPERIENCE when you’re doing something other than zoning out in front of a glaring screen? Dare to find out! April 29 – May 5 is Screen-Free Week, which is going on right now! Screen-Free Week is an annual event in which people across the country turn off all screen media–television, video games, computers, e-readers, cell phones, etc.–and celebrate the magic of being unplugged.

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.

{Lady Mary Wortley Montagu}

Obviously, there are jobs that require the screen. But if you spend your free time in front of some sort of media, consider unplugging this week and doing something else for a change. Write your latest scenes with pencil and notebook! READ AN INK-AND-PAPER BOOK! Listen to music! Go for a walk! Play a board game with your family! Make that awesome DIY project you saw on Pinterest! Color! Bake a double stuffed Oreo cake! Go on. I dare you!!

I haven't been completely screen-free this week, but I've limited my screen time considerably: no television at all, and computer/cell phone limited to work and a half hour/day to read blog posts or tweet something. Hopefully this week will help me form better habits! It's crazy how much time is easily, and unnecessarily, wasted in front of screens. It’s time to practice what I preach, so I leave you with the following terrific quotes to encourage you to unplug and read a book instead. Be inspired, turn off your computer/cell phone/television, and turn on life!

So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall.

{Roald Dahl} 

TV came relatively late to the King household, and I’m glad. I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit.

{Stephen King}

Those who read own the world, and those who watch television lose it.

{Werner Herzog}

When I went home I promised myself, I would take a cool shower and I would read. After a day spent dealing with others, television was just one more batch of voices to listen to; I’d rather have a book in my hands than the remote control.

{Charlaine Harris}

The more I write, the more I've come to realize that books have a different place in our society than other media. Books are different from television or film because they ask you to finish the project. You have to be actively engaged to read a book. It's more like a blueprint. What it really is, is an opportunity... A book is a place where you're asked to use your imagination.

{Joe Meno}

Reading requires actual concentration. If you skipped a paragraph, or even an important sentence, you could lose the entire story. With most TV shows, though, you didn't have to concentrate at all. You could space out for a good ten minutes, then come back and still figure out what was going on.

{Daniel Ehrenhaft}

A novel works it's magic by putting a reader inside another person's life. The pace is as slow as life. It's as detailed as life. It requires you, the reader, to fill in an outline of words with vivid pictures drawn subconsciously from your own life, so that the story feels more personal than the sets designed by someone else and handed over via TV or movies. 

{Barbara Kingsolver}

TV dulls one's imagination and corrodes one's zest for reading, writing, and study. TV makes zombies out of the best of us. 

{Allen Hackworth}

You don't learn anything unless you can find the patience to read. TV takes that away from you. It robs you from your mind.

{Markus Zusak}

Once weaned from the ephemeral craving for TV, most people will find they enjoy the time they spend reading. I’d like to suggest that turning off that 

endlessly quacking box is apt to improve the quality of your life 

as well as the quality of your writing.

{Stephen King}

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

{Groucho Marx}

Teachers and parents share a responsibility–to convince students during school years that reading is a pleasure. After a student leaves school, only the self-motivated will read by choice. No one remains to assign a book report or to encourage him to enjoy a certain book. Where we succeed is when the young adult browses, selects a book and eagerly begins to read. Where we fail is when a young adult builds a house without bookshelves and, when he moves into it, each night after dinner he stares only at the television set, mesmerized.

{Evelyn R. Llewellyn}

Which screen could you give up entirely? Which screen can’t you live without? I could definitely give up television, and I’d be fine without a cell phone. I’d really miss my computer, though!

PS) In March I posted about how I participate in the Relay for Life in honor of my best friend’s husband. If it’s a cause you support, please consider making a donation to my team. You can read more information about it at this post here: http://lauramarcella.blogspot.com/2013/03/fighting-for-world-with-no-cancer-and.html?m=0 Thank you!

Happy reading, living, and experiencing, Zigzaggers!!!