I'm a software architect by trade. That's basically a fancy term for a software developer or engineer who has been around long enough that they spend more of their time designing large, complex applications than they do actually writing code. Communication is vital: the most elegant design in the world is useless if your description or depiction is unclear. There's a maxim in the industry that one of the hardest problems in computer science is naming things, and it's not tongue-in-cheek. A bad name makes a design or a piece of code hard to understand, and that increases the likelihood of introducing bugs.
A similar problem exists in writing fiction, especially fantasy fiction where extensive worldbuilding requires vast numbers of names for not only characters, but peoples, nations, cities, villages, temples, markets, guilds and other organizations, and so on and so forth. All these names have to ring true. They have to be consistent. Throwing random syllables and p'unctua'tion together doesn't cut it. Tolkien was a master at naming things, but then his invented languages and histories predated his stories by years if not decades. Few of us have that luxury.
My Of Imprint and Erasure series is an urban fantasy. It is set in the modern day, in a slightly alternate version of our current world. This mitigates the naming problem, because for the most part I can use the names of places that already exist. I still have to name my characters, of course, and that can be challenging enough - especially for someone like my main character, D, whose name is something of a mystery itself, only partly revealed in the first book. Then there are a handful of key places: New Hope, Stengel and Sons, the Great Lakes Hotel, Gateway to the West Karate, Chouteau Village, and of course Hickory. Sometimes inspiration strikes quickly, other times you agonize for days or weeks and just settle. And you wonder if your readers even notice.
As I knuckle down to writing Book 2, I am faced with creating several new characters, locations, and organizations. Most of them are minor, but some are significant enough where I really need to get their names right. Once they're in print, there's no turning back! One of the most significant names I need to come up with is for what appears to be a New Age-like movement, ostensibly promoting environmental causes, but very tied up with the concept of Gaia, the personification of the Earth. From humble origins in the early twentieth century, the movement flourished worldwide during the 1960s and 1970s before retreating almost to obscurity by the end of the millennium. Its adherents are aware of the phenomena we know as Imprints, but interpret them as evidence of impending environmental catastrophe. My placeholder name for the movement is "The Seekers of Balance", but I'm not happy with it. And this is where you can help. If you have an idea for what to name this organization please let me know in the comments!
Until next time, which will likely be on Launch Day or thereabouts...