The excellent Metaxucafe just published the most practical post I've seen all week: a short essay dedicated to the art of character naming. It's such a basic writing question that I think people get anxious even admitting that they don't know how to name characters in a piece of fiction.
Without being preachy, Joe Clifford Faust writes about Ian Fleming's character-naming process in the James Bond novels, a writing lesson mixed up with some appropriately pulpy prose:
"Fleming had a real way with naming his Villains, his Henchmen (henchpersons?), and yes, his women. They all had names that reflected the right amount of larger-than-lifeness, toadyhood, or mystique as required by the plot: Monsieur Le Chiffre, Mr. Big, Sir Hugo Drax, Dr. Julius No, Auric Goldfinger, Emilio Largo, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Maria Freudenstein (villains)..."
You know you want to read the rest of that!
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