The power names have is absolutely incredible! Not only do they give us an identity and our characters one too, but they can change over time depending on how or who is using them! They can be funny, they can be loving, or they can even be terribly bad! In the end, names can have a great impact on your character and how you want to introduce them to the story. 

To start off, a name doesn’t always have to be meaningful; at times, the meaningfulness comes from the character’s design instead! As an example, one of my own characters is called Ray!! There was no big thinking or brainstorming behind his name; he was simply named that way because “Ray” was such a cool name for a 13-year-old me! Although, as I grew up, I wanted to change his name because I wanted him to stand out, to be seen the same way as any other important character I had in my story, but then I thought— “Why should I change it if it has already become such an important detail for his identity?” So, instead of changing his name to fit his personality, I kept it as it was and only made up for his “lack of uniqueness” by redesigning him! At times,  a character doesn’t need a “cool” name to be seen as cool; a simple name for a character with a good design is all people need!

But not everyone wants to stick to a simple, basic name; instead, a name with meaningful connections or significance can have a great impact on a character and their personality! As another example of this exact topic, another character of mine is called Mazikeen, meaning harmful spirit or “those who do damage”. As my main OC (original character), she went through many names and even has multiple names (but I’ll use another character of mine to talk about that next topic), she needed to have the perfect name to fit not only her personality, but also her story and impact on the world. Mazikeen was a pawn for a higher and more powerful deity, only created to fill that need for more power for the deity that created her, but after being resistive to submitting to corruption, she was banished from the stars, stripped of her divine power, and forced to work like a slave with no memories of her holy roots, only the rage of injustice and a sickening sence to bring revolution to a broken system. That type of story, with the addition of a blank personality, someone who was stripped of everything and only was left with uncontrolled anger and violence, needed a well-fitting name that summarized that pain. So when I heard the name Mazikeen, searching the meaning of that name, I knew that a spirit that caused harm could not just mean “someone who hurts others,” but it could mean “someone who hurts those who are too high to be hurt, yet they need to face the consequences of their bad deeds”. The name Mazikeen didn’t seem to me as a name that hurts anyone innocent, but as a punisher of sorts, and my OC fit that exact description, so the name Mazikeen was given to her, and the rest of her other names fell in line. 

Talking about other names and finally bringing up the question, “How can a name impact their introduction or the story”? As the last example, another character of mine that impacts the story greatly, and uses multiple names, is named The Abyss. He is the main villain of the story, the deity that created Mazikeen and her many other older siblings, for power and dominance. His name was heavily inspired by the Greek King God, Kronos, and the Roman deity, Chaos, both gods/entities that acted on pure greed and/or power. His name, “Abyss,” isn’t a real name; that’s just a title that people began to yell out once he brought hell to mortals and other creatures, but in his eyes, he felt more connected to that title that caused fear in people’s hearts than the other two actual names he was called by over the years. In general, the word “Abyss” means bottomless void, representing a sense of despair and danger as it swallows everything in its way, fitting for a God that consumes anyone with an ounce of power he desires. His other names reflected the exact opposite of the name he claimed for himself, such as Hal. The name means “ruler”, either ruler of a home or an army; the name is meant to represent his original fate of being a god of justice. He was supposed to reflect what his own father wanted from him, but the rejection of that name reveals the rejection of complying with the destiny chosen for him. His other name was Anselm, which means “divine protection.” It was given to him when he was banished to earth for the first years of his life; the woman who gave him that name believed that a child who fell from the skies above would bring good fortune to her and her two young daughters. By bringing danger and death to the woman and her daughters, it reflects the destructive nature that he was born with and represents his lack of goodness that people expected him to have. These names impact the story by giving the reader a sense of uneasiness when hearing the name “Abyss,” and later down the story, the names “Hal” and “Anselm” become supporters of the reader’s uneasiness, while with the characters around, they showcase the fear when hearing that name and become more aware of why so much fear surrounds this god. 

There’s not really a rule on how to name your characters; they can have a crazy lore that reflects their purpose and background, have a name that reflects their direct personality and what they represent, or it can have no meaning, but it just feels right to you!! Just go with what you feel right and have fun experimenting with names over the years!!