novel - What should I do when I am stuck on names during freewriting?

If I get hung up choosing a name for a character, should I come back to it later? Or should I try to figure one out? I feel like sometimes I have some momentum going forward and taking too much time to select a name stops said momentum.

Answer

I always feel that names are a big problem for me and coming up with some meaningful names that sound pleasant is one of the hardest parts of writing for me. That's why I never stop to come up with a name.

Before starting to write I normally have a plan for the next few pages at least and I know which characters will come up and what they will basically be doing. Then I use one of their main character traits or characteristics to come up with a name by using Google Translator with different languages until something interesting comes up. You can read more about my technique in my answer to What are good resources to get fantasy names?. That way I have an interesting name that I can use and that is likely so unique that I can relatively easily replace it later if I find a better name.

"Search and Replace" of your word processing software is likely a big help in this, but you have to be careful. For example in German saying "Tims Antwort ist gut" ("Tim's answer is good") and replacing "Tim" with "Secespitus" would yield "Secespituss Antwort ist gut" - which is wrong, as it should say "Secespitus' Antwort ist gut".

Furthermore the name can be part of a bigger name, like "Tim" could be part of "Timothy" and if you only want to replace "Tim" with "Dean" you would end up with "Deanothy" - which might be an interesting name, but not your originally desired result. Especially when you have a lot of different characters you should be careful. And at the same time you should be careful that if you want "Tim" and "Timothy" to be the same person you would have to rewrite the parts where for example the longer name is used - it might be a rhetorical device, like an angry mother calling her child by its full name, and you might want to preserve this when changing the name.

You should only replace each instance individually and not all at the same time to not run into these problems.

If you are writing and suddenly you introduce a new character that you haven't thought of you shouldn't stop - just use the first thing to make a placeholder that is easy to find later. ShadowMan, MagicLady, CreepyGrandma, BigFurryMonster, NiceButCreepyBoy, ... - everything is fine as long as it's easy to find.

That way you can stay in the flow and continue with the important stuff to know how your characters act and behave - which will allow you to more easily come up with a useful name for them. You have to learn about your character first before you can give him a fitting name. And to learn about your character you have to write something that he is part of. It's completely normal to leave the naming for later, for example the first revision.