How did you come up with the name of your protagonist?

eternityoz 2025-02-01 18:26:44 UTC #14

My protagonist, Kaito, has his name in Japanese origins due to my very first inspirations being from anime.

The name's translation roughly means "to soar over the sea", which is a rather abstract meaning when compared to my other characters, whose names tend to reflect their powers, positions, or traits. Since Kaito's power involves being able to freely mimic the powers of others, I decided his name would do well to symbolize some extent of that freedom. There's also deeper foreshadowing regarding the name's meaning, but to say those now would be major spoilers.

yaziroburrows 2025-04-22 02:02:00 UTC #15

I usually just use a random name generator until I find one I like xD
Fantasygenerators.com has a LOT of good name generators and I have used it for basically any name I use. Sometimes I'll take a name and adjust it, but since I work a lot with fantasy and I don't need them to have meaning, I just generators.

mohdadeebace 2025-04-22 06:03:24 UTC #16

Oh!!! It's really not a long story - the name just striked my mind so hard that I decided on it to be the name of the protagonaist

samconnely 2025-04-22 12:45:22 UTC #17

For mine, I went with "Iria" because it felt soft but still had this edge to it, which fits her vibe, quiet but not someone you’d want to mess with. I actually stumbled on it while messing around with name generators, then tweaked it a bit. No deep meaning, just that it clicked when I said it out loud.

Red_Dog 2025-04-22 14:31:44 UTC #18

Sadie Lurker:
For her first name I basically sat their think up names until I thought of one that looked like it fit her. As for the last name the HP Lovecraft story "The Lurking Fear" came to mind almost immediately.
I also thought up in the very beginning that Sadie would prefer the ambush the feral monsters instead of fighting them outright so the last name, Lurker felt right.

The_Chosen_Z 2025-04-22 16:05:49 UTC #19

Rose Hikari, Rose because it was one of the first things I thought of and Hikari because of Dawn's name in Japan

bumblebeelz 2025-04-22 18:11:18 UTC #20

I almost always use a name generator. I just keep rolling new ones until I get something I like. Then I change a few letters to make it unique. That, or I'll pull names from media I enjoy.

For my current protagonists, 'Vexarok' was a name spat out by a generator that I tweaked. 'Rolec' was lifted from a minor side character in an old video game.

ThunderChicken 2025-04-22 20:47:38 UTC #21

Daecon came about his name in a roundabout way: The first draft of the story I had him called "Hunter", and the story was called "Finding Hunter's Way". For some reason I decided that I didn't like the name, though, and sought a new one. I remembered a tertiary character from the final season of the TV show "Reboot", which was groundbreaking at the time (first CGI animated TV show, mid 1990's). The show was set inside a computer, and the characters were referred to "sprites" (the characters that looked most realistic), "Binomes" (more primitive characters, ones and zeroes), and, of course, viruses (names Megabyte, Hexadecimal, Killabyte, Gigabyte, and, in the last season, Daemon and her lieutenant Daecon). While Daecon played a very small part in the show, only showing up in a few episodes, I've always liked the name, and so I applied it to my character.

simplykit 2025-04-24 23:54:53 UTC #22

was thinking of one of my favorite porn stars...

but i just changed the last letter huhu

NGChloe 2025-04-25 00:06:50 UTC #23

I was writing another story and found a character I was writing was more interesting than the protag, who I found more on the bland side. I then rewrote the story around this character, but throughout the multiple changes, they themselves ended being rather bland. I then wrote an Fe3H fanfic, and one of my fav charas to write was Mercedes, so when i got back to Glassflower, I added more Mercedes elements to the character of Setsune

ArtGremlin 2025-04-25 18:38:19 UTC #24

The protagonist of the novel I accidentally started writing, Felix, is named that partially because it means lucky (which he is. It’s kinda his whole thing), but the in-universe reason he was named that was because it was his grandfather’s name (before he got brainwashed into being a secret police and his name was changed to Flower) which is ironic, because his grandfather has terrible luck. Coincidentally, he has the same name as my little brother (It’s a coincidence because I would’ve given him the same name even if my brother didn’t exist) So now I’ve given random slightly relevant characters the names of each of my family members because I think it’s funny. Most of them are in the previously mentioned story, but two are in this other one that I’ll never get around to making but I thought it would be cool if it was an animated musical.

Algae 2025-07-14 00:22:54 UTC #25

At the time I was watching slam dunk, and I really liked this side character, Yohei Mito, who didn't get enough screen time imo, and it happened to have a meaning and ring to it that really suited my character, so I just went with it :]

shriraa.sha 2025-07-14 03:58:02 UTC #26

For my characters, it was based on their future pathways in the plot as well as their true selves.

simonitropunk 2025-07-14 04:17:38 UTC #27

Lyza - I think the name Lyza is a strong name for a strong female character... when I saw her in a dream, I can't help but to sketch her. She looked fierce and strong and asked some friends like name suggestion and a friend gave out "Lyza, Samantha, Monica...) but Lyza stuck to me... it's a strong name. Not Leeza!!!... it's LYZA (La-i-i-za). It's still very feminine but had an edge to it.

Solaris - Also suggested by a friend... formerly in 2007, when this idea came about, she used to be called "Sarah"... Sarah and Owen. At work in 2011/2012, I was sketching her on my break at work and an English friend, she said "Solaris" and BOOM!!! Solaris and Owen.

Both came friends' suggestions.

faisalhussein394 2025-07-14 05:08:29 UTC #28

For me, I picked the Main Protagonist's name as Mukhtar Mohammad A'noor. Which means "Chosen Praise worthy of the light".

My second comic called Abbasia has no Main Protagonist Character, for the empire called "Abbasia" is the Main Protagonist. A tale about the rise and fall of an empire in SCI-FI.

The word Abbasia is inspired by the Abbasid Caliphate:

Trish 2025-07-14 05:43:12 UTC #29

I have protagonists named Megan and Melvin.

Honestly just wanted girl-boy twin names that were similar to each other, and it was good enough for me.

Genre: Supernatural-horror, Drama, Thriller

mccoyamandamarie 2025-07-14 22:46:47 UTC #30

For any character I consider the nationality of the character and what kind of story they are in then look at lists of names from that culture for inspiration. Like my main character in my novel Dead Body Girl, the story has a lot of traditional horror themes so my main character is from Romania. I was going to make her from Transylvania, but I thought that would be too on the nose. Being from Eastern Europe, she would have a Slavic sounding name. I noticed that a lot of Slavic female names had "ina" at the end so I gave her the name, Yukarina, Kari for short.

AAVI 2025-07-26 05:36:55 UTC #31

I actually have a duo. The first is Mokash, I can't reveal his name's meaning yet, as it's related to the plot. The second is his brother Grahn, whose name is inspired by the Hindi word for eclipse.
Both of their names are related to their destinies.

thecamrendutha 2025-07-26 05:56:28 UTC #32

I really love astronomy, so most of my protagonists have names inspired by stars!

My first protagonist is Alioth, named after the star in the Ursa Major constellation. He’s the classic golden-haired hero—noble, radiant, and a little emotionally constipated.

The second one is literally named Star. Yeah. I wasn’t even subtle with that one She’s kind of the mirror to Alioth: where he’s all optimistic and chosen-one-y, she’s like “why is the universe my problem??”

Then we have Siegfried, based on the legendary German dragon-slayer. In my story, he’s a gentle knight who would rather protect his friends than fight—but he can throw hands when needed.

Friedrich was named after a famous German poet and novelist (shoutout to Novalis), but I turned him into the chaotic funny guy who somehow always ends up in danger on purpose.

And Klara… her name comes from Clara Zetkin, a badass German activist. she’s an advocate for women’s rights and equality in the late 1900s. I reimagined her as the smart one in the party who probably has a hundred conspiracy boards in her room and gives the group all the Big Brain energy.

Aeonyn_Art 2025-07-26 06:59:29 UTC #33

I'm part of a three person (formerly four person) team with my brothers, so deciding on each name was a big battle. I think it came down to what sounded "right'" along with the meanings. I also happen to have a fantasy name generator app. The main protagonist, Kira, was relatively easy because her name literally means "ruler" or "princess," which pretty much sums up her character. My youngest brothers were 11 at the time, and for whatever reason their young minds thought it'd be fitting for every frog person's name to start with "gh," which I couldn't disagree with: hence, Ghlimbyrt, a deuteragonist (most of the name is made up, but "Bert" means "light," which made sense for our lil' ball o' sunshine ). Another deuteragonist recently introduced is Mae. Since she's a young mage, it seemed right that her name be related to nature-ish. It means "young maiden," and is short and sweet, like her. The one that was hardest to win was our first deuteragonist, Gideon. We always knew he'd be a serious warrior, so something with a related meaning was what we were looking for. However, my other brother was very particular about how it sounded. Eventually, he gave up, and I got to pick Gideon (meaning "one who cuts down"). Sorry bro, but I think he's come to agree with it. Anyway, I apologize for the rant!