BEHIND THE NAME~ insight into how and why I picked my characters names, and what they mean! Do your characters names have specific meanings? How did you come up with them?? Post here!!

Chokone Manatsu[/color]
You may have noticed I refer to my lady lulim here as "little butterfly" in my posts. There's a reason for this. Her name is a mixture of the japanese names "Cho" meaning 'butterfly' and "Kokone" meaning 'sound of the heart'. Thus Chokone literally having the meaning of 'Butterfly Heart'. It also has the alternate meaning of 'Small one' or 'child' due to the "ko" part <3 Her last name was just stolen form a character called "Manatsu" in the anime Uta-Kata who was a magical girl.

Hoshiko Suzumiya[/color]
Aka Star. Again there's a reason why her name is generally shortened to Star, because she lived in england for 6 years of her life and the people there couldnt pronounce Hoshiko. However it is perfectly fitting since "Hoshi" means 'star' with the added "ko" meaning 'child' as mentioned above. Thus her name means 'Star Child' literally. Her last name Suzumiya again stolen from an anime The melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Mira Summers[/color]
Now this one doesnt really have much thought put into her meaning. I liked Mirabelle because it sounded cute, although fittingly it has the latin meaning of "Lovely and Wondrous" but the name sounded a mouthful so I shortened it to just Mira meaning 'prosperous', and using Belle meaning 'beautiful' as the middle name. Her last name Summers was simply just because she has a bright and sunny personality.

Akimitsu Kyoko[/color]
A lot of thought went into her name, even though eventually the choice was pretty random. At first I wanted Akemi meaning 'red beauty' but the name sounded... I dont know I just decided I didnt like it. It wasnt sophisticated enough for her. So I used Akemi instead for her aunts name. I eventually decided on Akimitsu meaning 'Autumn Light' with the additional meanings of Aki on its own being 'radiance'. And I was instantly drawn to this despite it being a japanese boys name. Her last name Kyoko comes from Kyou meaning 'respect and reverence'.

Kairi Geijutsu
My most recent character, she's quite the sort of dramatic/creative person, and I wanted her name to reflect that. Kairi can have the japanese meaning of "Ocean" or "Sea Village" but however can also have a french meaning of "Melody" or "Song". I prefer the french meaning, whilst keeping the japanese look and feel of the name. The last name of Geijutsu is literally the japanese word for "The arts" or "Artist" thus her name meaning overall being something like 'Melodic Artist'. Her middle name is Hatsuye a japanese girls name meaning "Beginning Painting" which was brilliant for the art theme.

---

_{Sources & research: Baby Names World, Wiktionary, OurBabyName.com
Cho meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Cho.html
Choko meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Choko.html
Kokone meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Kokone.html
Hoshi meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Hoshi.html
Hoshiko meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Hoshiko.html
Mira meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Mira.html
Belle meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Belle.html
Mirabelle meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Mirabelle.html
Akimitsu meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Akimitsu.html
Akemi meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Akemi.html
Kyou meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Kyouko.html
Kyoko meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Kyoko.html
Kairi meaning: www.ourbabynamer.com/meaning-of-Kairi.html
Hatsuye meaning: babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Hatsuye.html
Geijutsu meaning: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/geijutsu}

my two characters have very specific meanings to their names too.

Rei Minori-
Rei means "bell" or "spirit", which i thought was oddly fitting to her character, considering how distant she is. as odd as it sounds, when i thought her up, i kind of compared her to the sound of a distant church bell, something beautiful and pure, but so far away (that's the poet in me XD)
her last name, Minori, means "truth" which, again, matches her character. both in the sense that she always speaks her mind and honestly tell sothers how it is. but more importantly (and more poetically) it represents her quest to find her TRUE self, who she really is.

Kagami Hiruko-
"Kagami" is a japanes name meaning "Mirror" i used this name because of Kagami's desire to be a reflection of her sister, the girl her parents always adored, while shunning her.
"Hiru" means to dry, or in another translation, "noon" or "daytime" and Ko means "Child" i chose this name because, together, it translates to "child of the day" or "day child" i think it shows and represents Kagami's bright inner personality.

Junko Hiruko-
Junko isnt made yet, she'll be brought in at the beginning of the school year. "Jun" means "Obedience" and Ko means "Child" so together, they make "Obedient child" i chose this name for her for two reasons; one is that fact that she is the one who her parents adore and love her, and i thought the name Junko would shwo that. but even more then that, it's an act of irony, considering her being a self- proclamed "rebel".

Oh wow Kagami, those are wonderful ^__^ It's so nice to know I'm not the only one who puts a lot of meaning and thought into character names! I know most here just pick at random.

I love that site!

www.behindthename.com/

surnames.behindthename.com/

Kazuko Takahashi

Kazuko would mean either "one child" or "harmony child." Takahashi means "a high bridge." She is at a big point in her life and has to be careful to not fall off either side. D:! also I want someone to confess to her on the St. Lulim bridge

Kanon Tachibana

Kanon comes from "flower" and "sound." Tachibana means "wild orange." I think they both represent her quite a bit. 8D

How did I not see this thread ages ago?

Another random revival.

Arceia Aeducan
I don't actually know what this name means, if it actually means anything at all. What I do have for you is the story of how she came to exist. Back in my Gaia days I was in a roleplay called Tales of the Forgotten. This is where my writing flourished and where I finally learned how to not suck, basically. Anyway, I had been running a trio of siblings in there named Echo, Edge, an Aeon(Familiar?) and also ran a few others that you guys will likely never meet. One night, I had a dream that Dayton(my first character ever) and I were sailing on a pirate ship(Aeon's, actually), with Link(Yes, THAT one) to find cake. I had weird dreams. Anyway, we were joined by a little girl named Arceia who apparently was also part of the adventure. I woke up, and immediately I had to make her. I can't explain why, but something was gnawing at me to recreate that little girl.

So I did.

Aeducan as a last name comes from me wanting to have two A names. That's it.

Kendall Kohma
Kendall came to exist after the trio up above(Echo, Edge, and Aeon if you're lazy) died out. Aeon was originally a blind pirate of mine. Her brothers were trying to arrest her for her crimes at sea. That was the basic plot. But, I eventually dropped all three of them in favor of something new. See, when I was in high School I wanted to know how the blind felt, so I donned a blindfold for an entire week and set myself out into the world. I made sure that I would have to learn as many of the things I took for granted. This eye opening(lol) experience made me rethink Aeon, but I couldn't just bring her back. So I created Kendall, and had Aeon be her alter ego. There was also a new trinity of siblings in my work- Dayton, Raphael, and Kendall. Only this time, it was Raphael that was the criminal, not Kendall.

June Kohma
You're probably wondering why I didn't cover the last name? Because I have more than one Kohma on here, of course.
June gets her name from the month she was first created during. It's that simple. However, this was the third time June had gone by since I began writing the Kohma series, and by this point the world was pretty fleshed out. June is actually my third protagonist- And I created her during the third June, which was the fourth year, of Kohma's production. Following this pattern, I named her June for the month, and made her the daughter of the fourth Sister(in this text, "Sisters" are daughters of the main antagonist that serve him and lead his cause. This fourth sister was a runaway, and renounced her family name.)

The surname "Kohma" comes from my Gaia days as well. Back when I wasn't writing a series, and was still new to RPing, Dayton was my first RP character. I only called him Dayton, and gave him very little backstory because I sucked at that at the time(Which I passed off as him having amnesia). The RP I was in liked to script events for the players to solve, and so at one point, he was thrusted into a situation where he was confronted by the Goddess of Time to recall his past. Now, my friend and longtime writing partner Bri happened to apparently have had ideas for this arc for me, since she was also along for this filler stuff. She initially came up with the last name during a scene were the characters watched Dayton's past unfold.

Naomi Amaterasu
This is a bit awkward to explain, as she has two names. The one on site- Naomi Amaterasu, and the one in Kohma- Althea Kohma.

Althea got her name from her trade- Assassin. However, I was uncreative as Hell with her and just wanted to feminize the name Altair. No, she wasn't an important character, either. In fact, she never made it out of the chapter she was introduced in.

Naomi was pretty lazy, too. I named her specifically because I remembered a movie I saw with a girl who had this name- I think it was National Lampoon? Anyway, the name spells "I moan" backwards, and considering the original approach I took to creating Naomi, it fit. So I kept it.

Ryoko Amaterasu
Ryoko also went by a different name in Kohma. She was Freya Cobalt. She was also that fourth Sister I mentioned before- Making her June's mother in Kohma. They have very little to do with each other here though. Ryoko as a name came from my lack of an understanding of Japanese naming. I thought it meant "talented" because of a stupid link I followed, and I was trying to keep at least one actually Japanese character on site. We see how well that worked out.

Amaterasu as a surname came from the fact that I wanted her to have a powerful family, and a powerful family was reflected in her name. It's that simple.

Freya came from me wanting to have a clever wordplay on Fear. Freya in Kohma is a lot like Ryoko used to be- Except her singing was only half of her ability. She was very ice themed- All her magic and dialogue referring to temperature in some way. Her singing would conjure blizzards(As a Sister she was a "boss" character.), and her main objective as a Sister was to keep the mirror beings in check. These were what Skade and Arceia became- mirrors of their old selves that were hellbent on creating death. Skade and Arceia were both unwillingly turned into these beings(Arceia is actually the third Sister.) and then Freya was put in charge of them(As well as hundreds just like them- Think about that). Her job was to keep them from causing too much damage, as they were unstable beings. She did this by freezing them solid and dragging them back to safety. The "Fear" comes in because these creatures were feared across the world. And she was the only thing they were afraid of.

Cobalt is only her last name because it sounded cool. No joke.

I was finding the kanji for my characters' names earlier, and then Arcy posted here and reminded me that this exists, so I decided to do it too!

Suzuki Aika
鈴木愛歌
I knew from the start that I wanted Aika to be involved in music. I had this idea for how I wanted her to look and I sketched it out before I found her face claim. I worked a long time on Aika before I joined the site, because I had found this place and wanted to make a decent first impression. Her name and her love of music were the first concrete things I had for her. "Ai" means "love". The character for the word "song" can also be read as "ka", the last part of Aika's name. So it pretty much means something along the lines of "love song". I found the name "Suzuki" in a textbook and since I really like the sounds of the letters "s" and "z", it really appealed to me and I picked it.

MINAMI REIKA
南霊果
Reika is a character I brought in from somewhere else. I've had a character named "Rei" on a bunch of sites and a couple of people referred to me as that on other sites as well. The original Reika had a twin named Reiji. SPRP Reika grew up in northern Japan, but her parents met and their affair happened in Tokyo, which is farther south. "Minami" is the word for "south". Creative, I know. As far as the first name goes, "rei" can mean "spirit", but it can also mean "zero". Instead of the "ka" that I used in Aika's name, I used a different character. Reika's "ka" is another reading of the word for "result" or something like that. So Reika's name is something along the lines of "no result". This connects to the way her stepmother views her in the SPRP world, as something that has no purpose and is a complete waste. But it also connects to Reika's origins with Reiji. They were the result of an experiment that eventually failed, and all documents of them and the experiment itself were erased. So yeah, no result.

GWENDOLYN EUNICE REYNES[/color]
This is more of an origin story in general. I've played both of her brothers on other sites. James was the first one, appearing as James Weiss on a couple of sites, and he was stuck giving up his dreams and bitterly working to support his beloved siblings, Augustus and Gwendolyn. Auggie and Gwen were originally created as backstory and I decided to give them random names that I love, but are now a little too weird to use. I played Auggie on only one site where he had supernatural powers and so was sent away where they could help him control them. James and Auggie were never on good terms, but their mutual love of their sister and her cheerfulness was what kept the three of them from falling apart. So I decided to play with Gwen since I liked her and never really got to flesh her out as well as the other two. But yeah, her name just came from me liking the name and needing an excuse to use it.

WATANABE AZUSA
渡辺梓
Like I said, I really like the sounds of "z" and "s", so when I saw the name "Azusa" on a list, I immediately picked it. I think it sounds stern and harsh, but still sort of cute. It's a type of tree that has really pretty flowers, too. I picked "Watanabe" because of a movie I watched in class called "To Live". It was about a government employee leading a dull life who realizes, only after finding out that he is about to die, that he never really enjoyed life and just went through the motions, taking things too seriously. So, I thought that sort of serious, no nonsense attitude fit Azusa.

SHIMIZU HIKARI/HIKARU
清水光／光る
Hikari and Hikaru were some of my earliest characters, so they have a long history with me. They were originally magical girl twins with complementary powers and personalities. Hikaru was originally the older twin, so her name always came first, but I changed it for this site. In another site, I combined them together into one person (Hikari) who, after being betrayed by her friends, snapped and changed her entire personality (Hikaru). Their last name has always been "Shimizu", meaning "pure water". I like the 'pure' part of it and you know, the way it sounds. For SPRP, I turned them into twins again, killed one off, and brought her back as a second personality instead. Hikari and Hikaru are sort of meant to be separate parts of one person, so they only function best as a pair. Hikari's name means "light" and Hikaru's name means "to shine". Their names combined are something along the lines of "shining light", sort of continuing with the idea that they're separate parts of a whole.

NOMURA MOEKA
野村萌化
I played Nomura Takeshi on another site. Here, Takeshi is her brother, but originally Takeshi and Moeka (first named Nanami) were cousins. Takeshi was a small, extremely feminine-looking boy. His best friend called him "Moe-kun", with "moe" meaning "budding" or "sprouting" and also as a reference to the term for cute girls, as a joke about how he was so feminine and still growing. The other students at his school bullied him, calling him "Moe-chan" and switching his boys' uniform with the girls' uniform. Moeka's hatred of the nickname "Moe-chan" is a reference to her origins. The "ka" in her name means "flower", so her name is something like "budding flower" with the added benefit of sounding pretty similar to "Moe-kun".

This thread is awesome!!!

Well, I just added a new one, so I think I'll start off with

Shun Sando

Shun could be a fun one. The name Shun translates to "Fast" and seemed to be appropriate given her penchant for sleight of hand. Her last name is a little trickier. Sando is a Japanese name, but the site I found it on listed several possible translations. Mostly, though it centers around the number 3. The one I went with is "Three Doors", as another tribute to her stage magician roots.

Akemi Araceli

A rough translation to her name means "Bright Alter to the Stars". "Bright" comes from Akemi and "Alter to/of the Stars" comes from the Spanish name Araceli. I wanted a name that both had alliteration and a very ostentatious meaning. Originally I had the name Araceli for a different character, who was part Alien. But, she's another story and might be poking around here, soon, too >>

Coyote-Hymn Foster

Foster...just seemed to go well with the first name, which I totally made up. I've always been fascinated with old Native American legends of Coyote, who was a trickster and a shapeshifter. Considering how upbeat Coyote (my character) tends to be, I thought it would be fun name her after a trickster. And unlike other tricksters, like Loki, Coyote's (the legend) tricks are more lighthearted and cheeky. They're more like shenanigans, really XD

Axelle Devereaux

Axelle's original last name was Delacroix, which meant "Crossroads" and considering that her original origin had an ancestor making a deal with a demon at the crossroads, it seemed like the appropriate choice. But, I switched it here when somebody beat me to the punch! Devereaux is a name that starts with a "D" and is Cajun in origin. Which fits real well with her bluesy New Orleans background. And Axelle just sounds cool XD I do believe it's a feminine form of Axel...and just like Axel Rose, it's taking her forever to release some original work XD

Kyoko Yanagawa~
旺子　夜南川　Kyoko is a mix between Kyou, which in this case means 'beautiful and flourishing, vigorous' and ko, which is child/girl. Yanagawa is a three-part last name composed of Ya, meaning night, na, which in this reading means south, and gawa, which is river. Thus, the name is 'Southern river of the night,' which doesn't mean much, but Kyoko used to be bullied in school due to people erasing that square 日　part of her first name when she wrote it and replacing it with another thing to get 狂，which has the same reading, but means 'lunatic', lol.

Tamiko Mignonette Nakagawa~
汰身子　ミグノネット　中川 Tamiko literally means 'Luxurious girl/person' .w. Nakagawa simply sounded like a common name meaning 'inside/center of the river', and mignonette is a French name which adds -ette to Mignon, meaning cute .w.

Hoshiko Watoga~
星子　羽十牙　Didn't know someone already haaas a star child ;w; Watoga means literally 'Feathers, ten fangs' but the 'to' can also just mean 'and' when saying it aloud, like it's a description of the appearance of a monster. I thought this matched her wickedness well .w.

Misako Katayanagi~
美小子　片柳　"Beautiful small child" this is also the translation of my real name apparently .w. Kata means one-sided and yanagi means willow, which has a story to it: A willow tree can be climbed around on, or used for shade to read a book or something. There are two sides to its use, but due to her illness, she can only use one side .w. She can't climb the tree or her heart will fail on her ;w;

Mi Wei Yan
密威 研 (pronounced mee-way-yayn) (ya I looked it up in a Chinese dictionary with speaker button things online to hear how it sounds cuz I don't know Chinese only Japanese o3o!!)
This is a Chinese name for a Chinese girl, Mi Wei means Secret Power, which I think kind of suits her because her research and experiments for creating robots are kind of confidential, even to her room mate. Her last name is very fitting, it means research. .w.