Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Names from Headstones

If I have a problem pulling names out of the air, then other aspiring authors do as well.

Attached are approximately 600 names of people who died in the 1930s. Please use the names respectfully.


















6 comments:

  1. Should we know where they were from?

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    Replies
    1. I don't mind sharing how I generated the list.

      I went to this site: https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery-browse/USA/Michigan/Eaton-County?id=county_1249 and went to a community in Eaton County. Then I selected one of the larger cemeteries. I set the flag to 1935 +/- 5 years and let it rip.

      Eaton County, Michigan in the 1930s was light on Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, Eye-talians and middle-Easterners.

      If your story is set in the southwest you might want to pull your own list of names.

      Delete
  2. Scrivener, a writing tool I've used, had a built-in random name generator. I found them a bit too generic, but still useful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is what I use- https://www.behindthename.com/random/

    I also redshirt folks...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I pulled names out of some National Geographics once, in the very early days of the internet, when I wanted names for a Malaysian character and a Danish character.

    ReplyDelete

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