Names for Villains: 5 Tips to Help You Choose a Name for the Baddie

When creating villains, it's all too tempting to give them a name that embodies their evilness. It's important, however, to keep in mind the normal conventions of naming. Names tend to reveal something about location, year, ethnicity, or nationality-not whether a person is destined to be a tyrannical overlord. Always think about the villain's parents. Would they really name their kid "Diablo?" They might if they're mad, but chances are, they wouldn't.

That doesn't mean you need to saddle your villain with a name like Ted or Mary, but think about plausibility before naming your villain. If you're dying to use a dark, twisted name, create a nickname your villain adopts. Need more advice? The following five tips will help you in choosing a name.

Names for Villains Tip 1: Picking a neutral name

Like I mentioned earlier, choosing a name based on traditional factors is the easiest way to achieve plausibility. Think about where and when the villain was born. If you're wondering what names were popular during a certain period, the Social Security Administration lists baby name popularity according to year.

But let's face it. Choosing a neutral name can suck out some of the fun of naming someone delightfully evil. If you can't bear to settle for a conventional name, read on.

Names for Villains Tip 2: Using evil-sounding names or names with dark meanings

Do you want to slyly suggest to your readers your character is a sadistic bastard? Be careful if you decide to choose a name with implicit evilness. If a name is stuffed with x's, k's, y's, and z's, readers can almost automatically assume the character is evil or at least morally ambiguous. Names with dark meanings have the same problem. Often overused, a name like Damien will give away that your character has slightly evil tendencies.

If you want to reveal something about the character through their name, keep the villains' motive in mind. Or a physical attribute. Or a weakness. ThinkBabyNames.com lets you search according to meaning once you've picked out what you want your villain's name to symbolize. Of course, if your villain revels in his or her evilness, devising a dark nickname that shows that exuberance is perfectly acceptable.

Names for Villains Tip 3: Playing with words and languages

If you simply must have an "evil" name, play around with words and foreign languages. Look up words with evil roots in a foreign language or mix and jumble words that illustrate vices. Mixing "nefarious" and "greed" together, I can come up with a normal name like Gerard. Or using just "nefarious," I can pick out the name Faris.

Names for Villains Tip 4: Using puns

Puns are best kept for over-the-top, embracing-their-evilness villains. Cruella de Vil of "101 Dalmatians" is a good example. Even though the pun is obvious ("cruel devil"), readers aren't likely to balk since she's so ostensibly evil. Parodies, satire, and children's literature are all genres where a pun could work well.

But if you want your villain's wicked ways to be somewhat subtle, you should probably stay away from puns (unless you're a master at creating sly puns).

Names for Villains Tip 5: Finding names

So you have some guidelines now, but what about names? Browsing through baby name websites can help (typing in baby names in any search engine will give you a ton of links). As mentioned earlier, ThinkBabyNames.com is a good resource to use if you're searching for names by meaning. BehindTheName.com is a good site if you want to look up names by ethnicity.

Conclusion

Disclaimer: This article is of course my own opinion. While names can be important, it's the story that matters. Concentrating your efforts into creating a compelling story is more important than worrying what your readers will think about your villain's name.