How do you all work on naming your characters? Often enough names sound too much like a literal name and/or native word to the top-down themes, OR borderline gibberish that most often sounds appropriate enough. Any advice for naming MtG based characters? Stories about how a character's name was finalized?

Tevish Szat once wrote a mini-essay on what to avoid when naming characters, but I don't have a link to it on me and I want to say that it was done back on the mothership. I'll get back to you on that if I make any progress. Also, check my Resources for Better Writing thread now and then, this is the perfect subject for that thread (and don't be afraid to ask a question in there if it's not answered).

EDIT: I actually do have a link to said mini-essay >.<
Here's the direct link: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3048&start=80#p120857
And I'll be posting a quote of it in the Resources thread momentarily.

EDIT AGAIN: Aaaaaaaand here's the Resource thread post: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6638&p=234754#p234754

I unfortunately see no helpful hints where naming is concerned. I've noticed most MtG characters seem to be named arbitrarily OR have somehow been successfully named in a way that resembles a theme (Ravnica and Theros for sure give off that vibe) but may or may not be legitimate names (or even words) from that culture (if there is a culture to be based on)

While this isn't the place to discuss my would be characters, I probably will share where I've managed to do with names. I designed Milov to be from or associated with Ravnica so I used Czech meaning to love/to make love (Milovat) and love/beloved (Laska) and while I removed the notion he was from Ravnica, his name stuck regardless, even if it must be said he adopted the name while on Ravnica. I decided to name my Orochi Jade Mage (someone who uses green magic because it's green not b/c of coincidence in categorization) Tsuchigo because I was feeling out Tsuchi (meanint earth or soil, and come to find out is a portion of a name of a snake in Japanese mythology) and a bit just because I thought the syllable 'go' would fit, not to mention the blend with "ichigo" and since "Tsuchigo" doesn't have its own meaning, it would fit PLUS the fact almost all named orochi have their names begin with an 'S' sound. My "egomage" (he most notably uses magic to force his likeness and/or identity onto other creatures) is named Valin Drom literally because I was repeating words (and their meanings) I was fond of, and the word "palindrome" came up, it's remotely clear what was changed to make the name, but it does def sound like an antagonistic Planeswalker's name lol Fortunately, another character I based on someone I know (Valin & Milov are based on my 2 best guy friends, this one being based on my wife) she has above average sized ears and teeth and my autistic sister-in-law has likened her other family members to certain Disney characters (such as my older sister-in-law being compared to Bagera for her bossiness) my wife got Dumbo xD Due to her attributes and fondness for elephants, I decided a Planeswalker inspired by her should be a loxodon. I couldn't come up with a name for some time until Woolly Loxodon came along and reminded me my wife's maiden name (Woolsey) could also apply to the race in question, so it also stuck. So a lot just fell together almost on its own, but I think I need a bit of sharpening to achieve likable and fitting names by trying.

Any other similar Name Stories could be entertaining/beneficial.

I'll have one or two things to say about this, but I don't think I'll be able to get to it today, and maybe not tomorrow. But I'll try to address this from my personal experience when I have the time.

Well, I can talk through the stories for some of my character names, but I should preface this by saying that I don't really have a philosophy or method for naming. My concerns tend to be pretty mundane: I like names that are easy to pronounce. I (selfishly) like names that are easy to type, since I wind up having to type them an awful lot. I like names which are easy to remember, because they reference the character's memorable traits in some way.

Beyond all that, I'm basically just looking for a name which evokes the character for me. It's almost always bottom-up from the character, rather than top-down from the world or setting. I have to be able to imagine that, if my character was in a crowded bar, and I called out the name at the top of my lungs, that the character would turn around and look to see who was asking for them. I have to feel like the name belongs to the character, and the character belongs to the name.

Beryl got her name because, when I first pictured her in my mind's eye, the one feature I immediately saw was her one good, green eye. The rest of her appearance -- and, frankly, the rest of her personality -- kind of formed around that one green eye, and the way it seldom looks right at you, the way it peeks out at you from beneath her hair. So Beryl got her name from a mineral, which, in its green form, becomes an emerald.

Astria got her name because I wanted something which came alphabetically before Beryl (since Astria is always coming before Beryl), and I wanted something which sounded grand, and maybe just a little bit self-important. Astria has a kind of cosmic scale to it, which reflects Astria's sense of her own destiny and grandiosity.

Moira got her name because it sounded comforting and motherly when I read it aloud. It evoked the sense of her I had in my head.

Beryl's home plane of Aliavelli (which, frankly, is one of my worst names) is a little nod to Machiavelli, since the plane draws heavily on themes from Florence around the time of the Medicis, and since politics on that plane is definitely in the Machiavellian vein. The names of the Great Houses, like Trevanei, are just meant to have a vaguely Italianate sound to them.

Jackie DeCoeur is a case of top-down naming. Since she is the alter-ego for the Jack of Hearts, I just put a French spin on that name. Originally, she was going to be a Jacqueline, but that quickly shortened to Jackie, because (a) I kept misspelling Jacqueline and (b) she just felt much more like a Jackie than a Jacqueline anyway, once I got to know her a little bit better. I can just imagine her fixing me with a red-eyed stare and saying: "Jacqueline is a name for a hooker or an heiress, and I'm neither of those."

I wrote a whole story about how Trotter acquired his appellation, but the name is, at the end of the day, an unapologetic pun. He's a fox who dances. He is, as Jackie once remarked, one hell of a trotter. So that's his name. Trotter's given name, Dyan, is a horrible inside joke on my part, since I first awarded it in a piece which told the story of Jackie and Dyan, two Jakkardian kids growing up in the Wasteland.

Dazie and Presto, again, are basically little wink-wink-nudge-nudge names. Dazie entered into my mind as this massive, tough-minded, no-nonsense minotaur, and, as such, I naturally gave her a name which, on the one hand, puts me in mind of being punched in the face, but, on the other hand, also puts me in mind of the Daisy cow logo. And, since Presto was the artificer who created all variety of magical tricks and gizmos, I gave him a magician-esque name.

Shakes gets his name for a very simple reason. As he himself said: "My friends call me Shakes, on account of my shaking." Shakes's given name -- Remy -- is another horrible inside joke, since the microfic it appears in takes a page from "Driver 8" by R.E.M.

Hush-Hush also comes from a very literal place. Hush-Hush is a pair of identical twins, both hushers, who don't even acknowledge any given names they might have, since they prefer to think of themselves as a single, unified entity, rather than as two separate people. So, turn two hushers into one entity, and you get Hush-Hush. Honestly, this may be my favorite name that I've done. I can't think of the twins without thinking of their name, or vice-versa.

Sharps acquired his name because he's a rattler, and, thinking about rattlers, their fangs make me think of hypodermic needles. Since needles and the like are referred to as "sharps" in hospitals, that became my rattler's name.

Gale is another case of a character being named in-story for a very literal reason. In the culture she grew up in, children are raised communally, and only receive a personal name when they have demonstrated their readiness to go to sea. Since Gale proved her mettle by foretelling the arrival of a storm, and since she has the gift of windspeaking, she was named Gale. Again, the name is very literal, but it evokes the character for me. I feel like that's what she wants to be called.

I don't want to go into the precise, in-story explanation for how Tryst acquired her name just yet, but I'll just say that it's in the same vein as Gale. The name has a literal meaning for the character, but also a figurative importance as well.

Nice! How many of them are Planeswalkers? I can already tell a chunk of them are named in such a way that their meanings are inherent in the plane's specific facets (like rattlers for example) but awesome insight, thanks for sharing. The only other names I have floating around are for: my werewolf Planeswalker Alfhilda (meaning "who fights for the elves") due to being German (to fit Innistrad) and because I'd kind of decided she would have similar sentiments about the elves of Innistrad that Sarkhan has for the dragons of Tarkir. So that was just a "I need a Germanic name" *internet* same goes for her intended sister Blenda (Germanic for "white") and in doing so it was determined she would be a strong follower of the Church of Avacyn and betray her sister. Say what you will about the concept, but the name I've settled on for my Drow planeswalker is based on a name my best friend (the one Milov is inspired by) naming a female drow Araneae (if I remember correctly) which was the scientific name for spiders I think. I went with Aran because so many things clicked: the association with spiders, the mundane-ness like Jace/Liliana/Gideon as WELL as worked well with my indecision to make the drow male or female. Only other names I've come up with are Chrysander for my Therosian leonin. The name is a simple search that is Greek for "golden", but I haven't decided if that isn't too much (after a while I thought about Ajani's last name Goldmane kind of taking away any uniqueness not to mention Ajani's main identifier is his uncommon fur color.) to attempt to avoid that, I'm still entertaining the idea of him having a golden-nyx-like battle aura effect during critical situations in a similar vein to Super Saiyan, but that's still up for debate. Lastly, Mnym is closer to Tsuchigo than Chrysander. While I did look up Greek meanings, his name became a portmandeau of the Greek words for "memory" and "name" since he wields mind magic specific to memory (and perhaps suffers from nesia himself) and I was having trouble coming up with a name.

Beryl, Gale, and Tryst are 'walkers. The rest are -- in the utilitarian (and, it always strikes me, slightly sad) parlance of our random generator -- "planar natives."

I use either real-world names or riffs on words in real-world languages.

Solphos: This plane's names draw heavily from Latin and Greek. "Lumina" is a reference to light. "Auric" is a reference to gold.

Corinne of Lacambre: My D&D character has a thinly disguised French name.

Mt. Moon Search and Rescue: In the Pokémon game I'm running, everyone just has a regular name in whatever culture they're implied to be from.

I find that the real world is the best and most believable source of names. It's a lot easier than stringing random syllables together and hoping they fit.

Though sometimes I wish the random syllable thing could work for me, because minus Innistrad, Ravnica, Theros, Tarkir, and a few planeswalkers, most characters' names are just syllables smashed together to sound good. In the example of Theros, a lot of the names SOUND very Greek but aren't immediately apparent if they're authentic or not (which also appeals to me) hence why Tsuchigo and Mnym (imo) fit so well, since portmandeau doesn't seem to be technique those cultures would have employed back then, so that the names still sound Japanese and Greek respectively, but not authentically so. My only peeve with a name I use is Chrysander... It sounds too authentically Greek, its meaning may overlap too much with other leonin (only saving grace is A. If I make him golden in a different way B. The reasoning behind it is he grew up as an orphan in Setessa, and he was named there after his fur) and not sure if shortening it to Chrys would sound just fine or kind of sound odd for a leonin (but again, Setessa)

Similar to Orcish, I do not have one consistent method. It completely depends on the project. Many of my names come from a bastardizing of real-life words that are tangentially related to what I'm going for with the Character. Because it's what I do, some of my character names are downright puns. Obviously, Mel Odrum (not a planeswalker) was named for the pun of giving him an attic, thus "Mel Odrum's Attic," or melodramatic. Antine's name came about because his original story was an extended reference to the Beatles' song "Rocky Raccoon," and so Antine is a reference to the word "Adamantine," which was once used commonly as a synonym of "rock-like."

Then, like you, some of my names are meant to evoke particular real-world cultures or language. Penelophine comes to mind. She's a planeswalking Siren, and I wanted to give her a roughly ancient Greek-sounding name. I named her after Odysseus's wife in the Odyssey, Penelope, and just altered the ending. Nasperge, who comes from the French-themed plane of Thorneau, was supposed to be vaguely French-sounding. Often, I get translations of key words, and then play around with the letters (rearrange them, take some out, add some in) until it seems like a fantasy-type name.

Finally, sometimes I just sort of do the random syllable thing. I have certain associations with certain sounds, and I often use that to reflect the character I want to create. For the most part, I try to create names that "sound" good to me, names that don't have many conflicting sounds that make them difficult to speak. To be honest, for most of my proper names, unless there was a specific story behind it, I don't even remember how I come up with them. There are a few of my characters that have specific name-origin stories that I don't want to get into now, but I'll probably tell them at some point.

Reading all of these responses, I guess that's why I've always considered myself bad at coming up with names: I've pretty much always come up with random syllables that sounded good in my brain. *looks sidelong at text file of 41 names for one story* ¬_¬

Wow. I don't think I have 41 different names in WotW...

Well...

*goes to count*

I've actually got 70 terms in that text file. BUT! But, I'm counting each created term separately, whether they be a first name, a last name, the name of a location, or name of a group. Some are pulling double-duty as names of a location which took on the name of a person, where some are spreading themselves out by counting the first and last names separately. Then there's a small handful which are the adjective forms of names I have (like how you would change Orzhov to Orzhovan), but those are counting for less than 5. I'm not counting the complete-name terms like "Mending Trail" or such.

Oh, okay. Yeah, if you take all proper nouns separate, then yeah, I'm guessing I have more than 41 with War of the Wheel. Maybe I'll have to count those up sometime.

FWIW, Luna, I am awful at inventing wholly new names -- that's why I tend to reach for pre-existing words, with little or no modification.

I get the feeling there's a fine line for superb naming conventions. Either it's too syllable-y or too copy-paste or just right. But so long as you're not stepping on sacred ground "I'll name my white and/or leonin Ajani." If it sounds good enough to leave as it is. In my case I love all the names I have for my characters except Chrysander. I'm not sure if his fur color being extraordinarily blond is enough for the Setessan elders to have named him an accurate Greek name meaning "gold", or if "Chrys" sounds too human. (I also hoped to wrap a in-story joke among his peers that he's so 'golden' King Macar must have handled him) As far as Therosian leonin names I've found through cards and UR are: Seza, Aletha, Koila, Brimaz, Omala, and Pyxathor. Seems like all names have A's and most mix and match Z's and "Th's". This really seems like the random syllable method of naming.

Yeah, I think when it comes to creating names for characters from pre-existing planes, you definitely want to do what you're doing and look at the conventions of that plane (or that specific location ON that plane, as they may vary.) There are usually (not always, but usually) naming conventions that go along with them that will often relate back to real-world conventions.

When I named the characters on the Island of Sula in my short story "Kiss of the Shorecerers," I gave them all Romanesque names, like Denner's surname of Fabellian. Of course, those names were references even beyond that, but still, if someone were (for some odd reason) to make a character from Sula, they should probably make the name at least somewhat Roman.

As for your character name, I actually sort of like Chrysander, although it sounds more human to me. That would be my only issue, and it's a minor one.

If you need a bunch of quick names for side-characters, I can't recommend baby-naming sites enough.

I used this one to name several characters in an (unfinished) Gentev story I was working on a while back, by searching for names with Indian origin:
http://www.babycenter.com/baby-names

It's not going to give you a very big pool to choose from depending on the culture, but it's still a valuable resource. And of course, if the pool is too big, you can adjust by choosing a certain number of syllables. I tended to prefer the more power individuals in the Gentev hierarchy to have three-syllable names, for example, while many of the other characters had two-syllable names.

I use http://babynamescountry.com/ (that's how I got Alfhilda, Blenda, and Chrysander) I also got lucky with some "on a whim" naming my Zendikar characters: Mory ( healer, father and main character) Fayer ( rough-around-the-edges lullmage) Ma-rik ( means-well vampire sellsword) Boomer ( goblin arsonist) and Launa ( old woman druid)

I make character names in accordance to what makes sense to their setting. For instance, my Matahouroa based planeswalkers have polynesian names.

I make a point of not creating names with hyphens or otherwise several components, unless I think I can get away with it.