George R.R. Martin on how he comes up with character names

Per his Not a Blog, George R.R. Martin has just returned home from Los Angeles, where he was present to watch Game of Thrones, his baby, break the record for most Emmy awards won by a TV show in a single year. He described his experience nicely: “[W]hile it IS an honor just to be nominated (as I have been, six times before), it’s even cooler to win.” Wise words.

Presumably, Martin will soon get back to work on The Winds of Winter, as his fans wait with bated breath. They’ll hopefully be news on that front soon, but until then, enjoy this video of Martin explaining how he comes up with the character names in his novels. The names in A Song of Ice and Fire have always been something of a rarity: they’re clearly not of this earth, but they’re not so stylized and overly fantastical that readers roll their eyes (I submit wizard Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander and villain Darken Rahl from Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series as examples fantasy names that have gone off the rails). It turns out that Martin has quite a few tricks up his sleeve when it comes to striking a balance.

The Grizznuckle Chronicles, a new series by George R.R. Martin, coming in January.

So it ends up that Martin’s secret to coming up with effective fantasy names is…thought. He doesn’t just throw some incongruent syllables together and hope the resulting name sounds fantastical. Between the baby name books, the waves of fictional migrations, and the European historical underpinnings, his characters’ names have a lot of context. Even if that means we have more than one character named Aegon (I and V) or Jeyne (Poole and Westerling), it’s more than worth it if it adds another layer of internal consistency to Martin’s world.

Next: Behind-the-scenes pic: Game of Thrones set up in Peñíscola continues