Writers, how do you develop your characters without using names of people you know? All the names I like are associated with people I know from school, work, church, etc.
I usually figure out what language (like i was looking at french names and surnames for some of my french characters Érasme Auclair Jeandré Merlot And Tyméo Valentin) and or meaning (Aconito is latin for aconite which is a deadly poison (also known as wolfsbane ,monks hood ,the queen of poisons (the king of poisons is arsenic i believe) it has lots of names)) i want the name to come from and go from there looking up name generators name websites and whatnot till i come up with a good name combination and if i find a nickname i like i try and find a long version (an example being Paris’s longer name is Aparicio)
Sometimes i pick the names based on personality and sometimes i base the personality on the names either way i notice in all of my characters (Dux is an abnormal character as he is the exception to this) have a little bit of my personality or thoughts (actually maybe Dux isn’t an exception cause when i made him i had been thinking about murder idk)
As for how i develop their looks i find colors that jist seem like they just match them and their personality also color combinations that look amazing Aconito has wonderful aconite violet hair and primrose yellow eyes
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I look on the web and find the names that match the character.
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Alright, my first recommendation is to research baby name lists that are dedicated to a specific attribute of names, such as their language/country of origin, meaning, spelling, first initial, etc. Secondly, I recommend googling the most common names from the time period your story takes place in.
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