OK, so my naming skills are not the best. *cough* Lars Capitulation *cough* Squiragon Lasers *cough* Anyway, I have since come up with better methods of naming characters than blurting out a random phrase. I hope these will help you and save you from having unfortunate names inextricably attach themselves to your characters. 

Using placeholders can be helpful since you don’t have to stop writing, especially during a word sprint or NaNoWriMo. However, there comes the peril that the name might stick — I largely imagine characters based on their names, so I often cannot rename them without upending the universe. Thus, I now usually write “[name]” unless I’m OK with it sticking.  Another way is to use an emoji or specific phrase to differentiate between unnamed characters.

When you do want to spend time finding a name, it can be useful to search for names based on the character’s culture or the name’s meaning. I recommend behindthename.com, which has a lot of names from different cultures, with meanings and associations, an advanced search, and other cool things! (Or you can just google names with certain meanings or origins.) Since names vary based on language and region, if your story takes place on Earth, it can be helpful to look up names in different languages and cultures; if you’re inventing a world, you can think about how names vary in sound based on the region. Brandon Sanderson has good tips for this. Of course, if you don’t want to create a fictional language, you can go by how the name sounds. Symbolic meanings of names can be a good detail and foreshadow things about the character (e.g. Darth Vader — spoiler alert if you translate it). It can also be fun to have names that are references to people or things (like most of the names in A Series of Unfortunate Events). There’s also the backstory of the name — who chose it and why, whether the character changed their name, whether they have a nickname, etc. Finally, I recommend thinking of the associations readers might have with a name. Mary or Anne will give a very different impression than Avida or Vespera.

Of course, there are probably times when a name will never come back into the story but you don’t want it to be PotatoTemporaryNameThing. In that case, baby-name websites can be helpful (I often google “names that mean ——” and look through lists that come up). I especially recommend fantasynamegenerators.com — it can generate interesting names in a bunch of different categories (as well as aspects of worldbuilding). I also keep a list of names I like that I can refer to.

Happy naming!