What would you name the characters in a book if you wrote one?

This is hard for me...A trick that I learned as a young writer (its been years since I have written but wrote A LOT when I was younger) was to not think of these things. Just start writing and let them come to you.

Sure you can develop a base character and have an initial idea of how you want them to be. But in reality if you are writing with your heart not your mind these characters develop themselves.

My favorite example of this is when I was in about the tenth grade I was in an advanced creative writing class. We had to do a short story. I had my main character "Emma". Emma in my mind was a tennis player with blonde hair. By the third descriptive sentence of her Emma had turned into a soccer playing brunette. That is who Emma was meant to be.

Captain Jenna B. Jones could start out as a shy leader with strong qualities but insecure in her abilities and be totally turned around by the end of the second page.

Let your story write itself...you would be amazed at the results!!!

This is for a mystery:

Amos Langley - heir to the Langley estate, playboy, gambler

Sir Micheal Langley - widower, on his death bed

Lydia Langley - daughter of Sir Michael, a bit of a flirt

Detective Mark Shields - veteran detective

Larry Sneed - butler for the Langley estate, friendly but secretive

Joe Crumley - groundskeeper at the Langley estate, mysterious and always seems to be watching

Doug D. Douglas. A misanthropic office clerk that lives between desperation and madness

I would probably write something that was a realistic fiction, so I would use names similar to those that I know in real life. Ya know what I mean?

How about something that contradicts itself like

Gabriel or Angela for someone very maliscious, or evil.