Wednesday May 18, 2005

Fiction Hacks

Having trouble coming up with appropriately whimsical, portentous, or “quirky” names for your fictional characters, especially now that phonebooks have gone the way of the answering machine? BabyNames.com’s Random Name Generator is a perfectly serviceable substitute for naming literary personae. The “Personality Trait” selector doesn’t seem to be of much use—what’s so “philosophical” about “Paniz Dore Jones?”—but it’s still a good way to churn through a lot of possibilities.

And if you’re having trouble putting a face with a name, get a free registration at a stock photo site like iStockPhoto.com (that’s the one I use) and browse around for inspiration. For a couple bucks, you can download a copy for future reference. Also good for Friendster profiles and fake IDs.