How do you come up with the names for ur characters? I tried making a super oc once and was devastated to learn that someone had already thought of the obvious pun "The Insti-gator" like.... alligator. Myriad Lad has GREAT name structure imo, good rhyme to it and communicates his power succinctly.
I mostly take inspo from Silver Age (and earlier) naming conventions!
A large portion of my characters have compound/two part names ending in some variation of Man/Woman/Boy/Girl etc (FOR EXAMPLE: Evolution Man, Cellular Man, Seismic Man, Incino-Woman, Armadillo Girl, Myriad Lad, Ionic Girl, NukeGirl, Megaloman, Nowhere Girl, Modular Man, Non-Newtonian Man, Defacer Man, etc)
Alliteration is also a safe bet (FOR EXAMPLE: Captain Cathode, Mr. Matter, Modern Major, Megaloman, Modular Man, Non-Newtonian Man, Grim Gazer, Daring Darling, Motor Mouth, Dr. Deplorable, Lady Limb, Mad Mollusc)
Rhyming is fun but I only have one off the top of my head (Myriad Lad) but if you can pull of a good one, theyre very memorable
Adjectives or other words that describe your character plus a second word are solid (EXAMPLES: Grim Gazer has fear inducing sight, Cellular Man is a stretcher that specifically has control over his cells, Non-Newtonian Man is also a stretcher but his body acts more like sentient ooblek, Seismic Man causes tremors, Incino-Woman has fire powers, Motor Mouth has verbal telekinesis, etc and so on)
Animals are always solid, even if your hero isnt explicitly animal themed (FOR EXAMPLE: Frigatebird, Cicada, Polecat, Horn Frog, Doberman, Armadillo Girl, Nightjar, Porcupine O'Malley, Boomslang, Sidewinder, Mad Mollusc, Jackdaw, Dogfish, Lyrebird)
Colors are always a SOLID choice. I've actually been meaning to make some more color-named heroes, I only have, like, three (Premier Blue, Blue Yonder, Black Dandy)
Single word/non-compound names are fun if you can think of a cool enough word, I don't have a ton of these just because I prefer smushing words together for my names but they're a solid choice if you can find a good one. Adding a "The" to these also helps (FOR EXAMPLE: Providence, Threshold, The Triad, Quarry, Extravaganza, The Denisovan, Psychedelia, The Waysider)
Taking one word and just adding a lil sumthin' to it (Infinitessa is derived from infinitesimal because shes a shrinker, Kinestro is from 'kinetic', Neurothena is neuro+Athena because she's a psychic and also it just sounds plain cool, Moonager is moonage + teenager, Atomancer is from atom obviously)
Sometimes i just copy Marvel or DCs homework a little (DC has Sinestro and Marvel has Chemistro so I was like. Hey. I want a -stro name. So I made Kinestro.)
SOMETIMES. I just come up with some ridiculous bullshit thats fun (like Kludge, the Exquisite Corpse for my frankensteinian abomination!!!)
Sometimes if I'm really struggling to come up with a name for a themed hero, I'll hop on the wiki page for whatever their theme is and look for a cool sounding word (I hopped on the wiki for radiation and thats how I got Captain Cathode. I looked thru the wiki for lasers and got Threshold)
But I've found thought MOST OF THE TIME, A cool name will come to me and I make a hero surrounding that name
If I think of a name thats already been used, sometimes I'll just add a little something to it (I had a character named Porcupine but that was taken, so I just added a last name to the end and BAM. Porcupine O'Malley.)
BUT. at the end of the day, the Big Two have been around for decades upon decades and have made thousands upon thousands of characters, many of which having been unused for years or only ever had one or two appearances. On top of that, theres dozens of smaller publishers and who KNOWS how many indie creators thatve made their fair share of heroes. Lots of names have been "taken". but for those ultra niche no-ones-ever-heard-of-them characters, youre probably fine if you thought of a cool name just to find out somebody else also thought of it. As long as youre not like "Hey guys this is my new oc, Spider-Man, dont worry about it too much.
Hell, Marvel and DC (and other publishers) rip eachother off all the time. Wonder Woman/ Wonder Man, Power Man / Power Girl, hell I wouldve preferred the world just have two Captain Marvels rather than change Billy to "Shazam" (I will never call him that)! Publishers even have redundant names within their own universe (DC gets to have The Atom, Captain Atom, and Atom-Smasher??? The biggest reason I made Atomancer was to get on that atomic action and that id NOT a goof. And Marvel has about a million Spider-people running around. not name related but why does DC have three guys running around in nearly the same outfit. Booster Gold, Animal Man and Javelin must have the same tailor)
This was longer than I intended it to be but I have a lot of thoughts on Hero names. I judt love making heroes! Theres a lot of ways to go about these things. I hope this was helpful! (I also hope seeing my names created some interest in my ocs muahaha, this was just a sampler of my guys)
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