This morning at a train station, a new minor character appeared on my scene. So this character would not be called anonymously “that girl,” or by relationship “my character’s sister’s friend,” or by age and location “12 year old at the train station with her parents,” I had to come up with a name.

Pretty quickly too, because I wasn’t anywhere near my 1,667 word count du jour, and I had 30 minutes of interrupt-free morning time to write.

In the past, like as in my past novel that sits on a shelf (meaning it’s in a folder on the computer I don’t use anymore), I agonized about character names.

I have one character, in that novel, that has been renamed about six times. Bianca, Vivica, Vivienne, and a couple others I can’t remember. She’s not even my main character (MC), but a friend to the MC. But I agonized, and still I am not happy with her name.

I consulted baby name books, that list a brief meaning for the name. I experimented with inventing a name (alas, Vivica), I would choose a name, and then reference Vimala Rodgers’ book Transform Your Life Through Handwriting, which gives a meaning to each letter of the alphabet, to see if that fit the personality of the character.

My trusted reader-friend didn’t like any of the names. I don’t blame her, I didn’t either, but I couldn’t just name her X.

Here’s the thing, though. When I have about 30 seconds to come up with a name, I get pretty resourceful, or droll. It’s a coin toss. Today I remembered my fellow ‘Wrimos at the Kick Off Party a week ago discussing how they come up with character names.

One shared a trick that I found so simplistically brilliant that I stole and used this idea this morning.

There are websites that list the most popular baby names for a particular year!

(If you have name tricks, leave a note, over there, pretty please. I appreciate writing tricks. → )

For me, too many names to choose from is a big problem. It’s like trying to decide which kind of cereal to buy, in the vast, endless cereal row at the grocery store (which is why I shop at Trader Joe’s, but I digress). But pick limit my choices? Thank you. I’ll come back and shop with you again.

I had a character to name.

My character told me this morning that her sister was 12, so by reasonable deduction (challenging at 5:30AM!), so was her sister’s friend. Doing some age calculating math (also challenging at 5:30AM) I deduced this kid was born in 1986 (age math is in the note over there → ).

Then I found this site. This wonderful, utopian site of baby names. But better than that, the most popular baby names in 1986 (and other years, but I don’t care about them today).

It’s not likely the only site like this, but hey, it’s the first I found so it gets the cred.

I read through the name list at lightening speed (28 minutes left to write!), waiting for one name to grab me.

Hannah. I think I chose Hannah.

Nope, I chose Shelby.

But see? It doesn’t matter. I can always, like the frequently changed character of my past novel, change it in December.