6 replies to this topic

[Onionhead Attacks]

I got inspired to write a story on Naruto's heritage that actually doesn't connect to the Yondaime and I was wondering if anyone can give me name suggestions for Naruto's father and mother. I don't think that I'm going to use it for the contest though. Anyway, I hope that I'll actually get some response.

EDIT: Hehe... I forgot to mention that I need the surname too. XD

[DazeDreamer]

Hm...Name....How bout the mom's name is Nikko and the dad's name is Taiyo?

[Shouri no Hana]

coming up with names is hard, like it my fic I swear I sat ther for over half an hour trying to think of a name for Sakura's later father in my fic...so I ended up using the same name I did for my OC's father (not like my OC is going to play a huge role in the fic, prob just a one shot deal in the chuunin exams); Kesshi, meaning Hero (cheese right?) fine a word or meaning and use one of the many sites out there that transalte it for you.

Anyway, I've used the names Kesshi and Iris for Sakura's parents and it would probaly stay like that.

[Onionhead Attacks]

Hm.... thanks for the help... I went and looked up a list of japanese names and chose the names randomly. I'll post up my story on ff.net, but i'm still not sure whether or not to submit it for the contest since it sorta works for one of the themes. Oh well, again, thanks for the help.

[jigglychu]

Hm.... thanks for the help... I went and looked up a list of japanese names and chose the names randomly. I'll post up my story on ff.net, but i'm still not sure whether or not to submit it for the contest since it sorta works for one of the themes. Oh well, again, thanks for the help.

Why not post it for the contest? You've got nothing to lose, and I'm always looking for more fanfiction!

[MonkeysTotallyRock]

i'm really sorry. i suck at coming up with names, so i might not be the best person to ask.

[TikiTDO]

Monkey, sorry, but why would you post to say that you can't help? It just clutters up the thread with unnecessary posts. If you wish so much to boost your post count there are plenty of off-topic threads you could use.

Anyway, on to the topic in question. I'm not a particularly good or successful author but I think I can talk about this with at least some authority (However imagined). I used to have huge problems coming up with names; my main tool for creating names was randomly hitting the keyboard until something sounded good. This method ended up working somewhat well, especially for original worlds, and it also had the added benefit of subconsciously selecting a name that fit the character. As an example, I named a character Nevrai, which turned out to almost be truth in French. Incidentally this fit perfectly with the plot. Also, my character in World of Warcraft is named Seiar which if spelled backwards as raies can mean ray [of light], fitting the mage class quite well.

Of course not every story can have arbitrary names, when writing a piece based on Naruto you are commonly expected to have Japanese sounding names at the very least. This is when your planning skills come into play. Ideally you have planned out a genealogy of your character, in which case consider the personality of the parent’s parents. What sort of qualities would these people want their child to have?

As an example of the above I present my Petals: PTE, I had quite a time picking out the names of Sakura’s parents, but in the end I settled on Akina (Spring Flower), and Yasuo (Gentle One). In this story Akina is the one who adopted her husband into the Haruno clan. This was a family of traders who sold medical herbs explaining the flower motif in naming, as well as the friendship with the Yamanaka clan. I tried to remain true to this theme and thus I have Akina, Sakura and even Yuri (Lilly) who is Sakura’s sister. Yasuo on the other hand is the son of a small farmer family that lived far from any ninja village, his parents did not want him to have anything to do with war or the ninja life, in fact they wanted him to become a holy man and they named him to reflect this. He ended up disobeying their wishes when he met Akina, who was traveling with her father to visit some old friends from when he was still a trader.

Obviously not everyone is willing to go through the problem of making up this level of history for minor characters. At the very least consider the type of person you want your character to be. Even your minor characters should have some kind of defining characteristic, so name them accordingly. For this last method my example is an unpublished original story. A character named Zen is a child of an angel and demon, signifying the balance of the two races. An angel princess, Mika, is to be the queen of a moon themed country. For this story I did not limit myself to Japanese though, so I have characters such as Urian and Sofiel, the former of which is a demon of sorcery in German mythology and the latter the Christian angel of nature, the characters are just that, with Urian being a serious demonic mage, and Sofiel a likewise serious shamanistic angel (A match made in heaven, you should know right off). You need not limit yourself to real names, a technology promoter in the same story is known as Levina which originates from the Latin word for lightning.