Thread: Need naming advice

So, I've decided to name my main character Simon. However, I'm having trouble thinking of a good surname. To complicate the matter, I have certain criteria for the name:

-The name should be vaguely European-sounding, but I want his nationality to be ambiguous so you shouldn't be able to easily guess where he's from by his name.
-Must match his first name (Simon) well enough; that is to say his first name and surnames put together should have a nice ring to it.
-His name should sound somewhat heroic. I like to give my heroes somewhat cooler-then-ordinary names.

I have one back-up surname already but I'm not quite happy with it. I guess what I am saying is that I'm open to suggestions if you lot have any to offer.

"European" is pretty broad. Did you mean Romantic, Nordic, Slavic, Anglic or what? What I would do is call him Simon Syzygy and use search/replace when I had the right name.

Originally Posted by astroannie

"European" is pretty broad. Did you mean Romantic, Nordic, Slavic, Anglic or what?

I suppose northern European/Germanic if we narrow down the region he's likely to hail from. But again, the main point is that it should be ambiguous. He could be American or he could be, I dunno, Danish. If there's no way of telling, then we're on the right track.

What I would do is call him Simon Syzygy and use search/replace when I had the right name.

Unfortunately, I have a hard time working that way. I pretty much need to get my characters clearly defined before I can start the actual writing. Besides, eventually I'll need a name anyway so it would just be postponing the inevitable.

Simon Knight, good name I think

Simon Pollack

Do you want a real last name or a completely fantasy one?

Simon Thorsom - Sounds is if it ought to be north European, has an element of the god Thor; Simon could be English, French or Belgian, so the combination covers a lot of ground. As far as I know Thorsom is not a real name, so it would give your character an air of the unknown.

If you want a random name generator to try out different combinations of syllables I like nine.frenchboys.net

Originally Posted by EmilyJo

Simon Knight, good name I think

Certinaly heroic sounding; I might consider that if he was supposed to be English or American. I'd rather not use surnames that are also English words, though, since those are rare in non-English speaking countries.

Originally Posted by Mathias Cavanaugh

Do you want a real last name or a completely fantasy one?

Real, or one that sounds real. He's from our world, the rest of the cast will be fantasy characters. I have no problem at all thinking of fantasy names, but real ones are a lot trickier.

Originally Posted by Bloggsworth

Simon Thorsom - Sounds is if it ought to be north European, has an element of the god Thor; Simon could be English, French or Belgian, so the combination covers a lot of ground. As far as I know Thorsom is not a real name, so it would give your character an air of the unknown.

Sounds like a mispronounced version of Thorson, I'd say.

Originally Posted by Notquitexena

If you want a random name generator to try out different combinations of syllables I like nine.frenchboys.net

I know of a few name generators, but they are a bit unreliable and haven't provided any good results so far. I'm also going through the local phonebook for anything that might work. Might start looking over city names as well.

I'll probably end up picking the name of a list, anyway, so by all means, throw whatever you can think of at me.

Simon Setzger