Hey everyone, Greg here.
I’m one of those writers who obsess over character names. Today’s post is about one facet of name selection - the math of names.
Names cycle in popularity over time and as a result a name is an instant clue to a character's age. Prove it to yourself. Imagine Ethel, Jennifer, and Olivia together in one location - are we at a multigenerational family dinner or is it the start of an adventure featuring a “slobber” of toddlers? For most of us, this is easier to imagine being multigenerational. Here in BC where I live, Ethel peaked in popularity in 1925, Jennifer peaked in 1984, and Olivia was the top girl’s name in 2021. It doesn’t mean that this couldn’t be an adventure, but in that scenario, Jennifer is likely the mom, Olivia is our main character, and Ethel is the quirky “outside the norm” kid planning an escape from preschool. There is so much “show, don’t tell” in names.
Fortunately, there are online resources that can help us pick age-specific names. The basic math is to take the year you are likely to get your comic into the world and subtract the age of the character. That gives you the year they were born. From there, it is pretty straightforward to bring up “most popular baby names” lists for that year. The attached spreadsheet automates this by doing the calculation and then creating custom links to that year in a few databases.
Obviously, there are issues with this technique. If your story is a futuristic SciFi story or a medieval adventure, modern name databases don’t really apply. Sometimes actual names are unimportant. For example, in the prequel to The Lump Sum Saga, I deliberately chose to use job titles as names. Naming, based on popularity, is also not always applicable as it may or may not accurately reflect the cultural background of your character or the location of your story. As such, this is only one facet I consider when naming my characters.
In reality, I’m more concerned about the subtle influence of nominative determinism, but that is a topic for another post.
The Math of Naming Your Character