Names in SciFi Writing

Happy Monday, everyone!

Today’s topic is fairly simple and straight forward – naming your scifi characters. Your playground may bethe entire universe but that doesn’t mean you should come up with names that would never fly on our home planet! When it comes to making scifi character names, I suggest the following 3 step process:

1.) Find an Earth-based name.
It doesn’t have to be from the English speaking world, either! Your readers are going to want to connect with your characters and the fastest way to do that is through an understood name.

2.) Remove and replace the vowels.
Ever take a look at a name (or any word for that matter) without the vowels? Ndrw instead of Andrew. Replace those vowels with others and see how it looks to you. Ondraw. Oddly, thatdoes look like a name – and one I can pronounce in my mind.

3.) Add or remove single letters.
Ondraw is a good start but it sounds like a western movie when the protagonist and antagonist have met at high noon, no? Let’s try removing a single letter – Ondaw or Ondra. Those are perfectly alien names and, without reading this post, no one would be aware that Andrew was the base – especially if my alien woman was named Ondra.