Got stuck on a character name for a story and it took me a solid month to figure it out

I was writing a fantasy story set in a city based on old Prague, and I had this side character who was a clockmaker. I knew everything about him, his backstory, his role in the plot, but I just could not land on a name that felt right. I must have gone through 200 names, from simple stuff like 'Leo' to weird fantasy ones I made up. I even tried using one of those online name generators for a week, but nothing clicked. My partner finally said, 'You're overthinking it, just pick one and move on,' but I couldn't. I ended up putting the whole project on hold because I was so stuck on this one detail. It wasn't until I was looking at an old map of the real city that I saw the street name 'Josefov' and it just fit perfectly. Has anyone else ever gotten completely derailed by something as small as a name?

4 comments

4 Comments

reesej272mo ago

That's interesting how the map solved it. When you were trying all those names, were you looking for something that sounded like a real person from that place, or more for a name that just felt right for the character's personality?

gray_morgan2mo ago

Man, it was both at once and it drove me nuts. I needed it to sound like a real guy from that town, but also match his quiet, stubborn vibe. "Carl" felt too soft, "Hank" felt too loud. Finding "Walt" on the map was the click - it's grounded but has some grit to it, you know? The right name just lets the character breathe.

max_brown2mo ago

Getting hung up on one small detail and letting it stop the whole job is something I see all the time. My guys will stare at a tiny paint drip for an hour instead of finishing the wall. It's never about the drip itself, it's about wanting the whole thing to be perfect. The name was your version of that drip. You fix it by finding the right tool, like your map, and then you move forward.

sean_green441mo ago

Wait, do you really think finding the right name is just about picking a tool and moving on? I feel like with characters it's more like building a foundation, not fixing a paint drip. If you pick the wrong name, even if it sounds okay, it can mess up how the whole story reads later. Getting the small stuff right matters because that one detail changes everything about how people see the character. I get what you're saying about not getting stuck, but sometimes that "drip" is actually the whole wall if you ignore it.