How to not write a Mary Sue

Names

• If you want to name a character after yourself, don't try to hide it; just do it. Be honest. Just make sure such a character has a minor role in the grand scheme of things, and that such a name will still fit in the setting.

• In some fandoms, everybody has a Meaningful Name. In others, names are typically ordinary. In some settings, characters have very strange names, or their names are jokes. Sometimes it's a combination. As usual with such things, you should go with the flow.

• There's no real need for a "Blind Idiot" Translation - Hanzi Smatter shows just how common this is. A character unwittingly named something like "Chronic Nasal Congestion" will immediately send you into Narm territory.

• Use names involving gemstones, flowers, and colours with discretion. Stick with those already commonly established as names, like "Ruby" and "Lily".

• If you want a name from any other language than your own default language, make sure the setting allows it... and that it's an actual name. People making up 'Japanese-sounding' names are the greatest offenders here; adding "-ko" to the end of a few vaguely Asian-sounding syllables is right out.

• There is NO excuse for making up names in an existing language. If you think a foreign name will improve your character, you can find a genuine one on any number of baby name dictionaries on the Internet. There are even extensive lists of common foreign surnames and their meanings, so you don't need to make up those either.

• Using foreign words as names (ex: "Kyoryu", the Japanese word for "dinosaur") should make sense in the story. Using a Spanish or Mexican name in a setting with no equivalent to Spain or Mexico is nonsense. Using a Swahili name in a setting with an Africa equivalent is acceptable.

• This said, there are ways an exotic name could be justified. If the character is religious, she might have taken a new name – possibly as an initiation practise. Her parents might have given her an Embarrassing First Name, which would be why she goes by a first initial. In general, though, there are two major acceptable explanations for a person bearing a name from outside her culture of rearing: (1) She has been assimilated into the relevant culture (good backstory potential), or (2) she was saddled with it by her parent(s). It's just possible that a third might arise in the case of a transsexual.

• Do not give your character a name with a 'creative' alternate spelling just to make her seem more special or unique. Jennifer is no less special or interesting than a Jynnifyr. This includes excessive punctuation, such as Jy'n'ff'er or J'yn-i-Ffer. It's much more likely to pull your readers out of your world and into one where they laugh or gag (depending on the reader) at your poor sense in namingnote .

• An entirely made-up name is a very unwise choice in any more or less realistic universe. If it's an exotic, magical-medieval setting where everyone's names are fancy, you're safe. The big exception is if the character's backstory includes the sort of parents who would hang a made-up name on their kid. This generally means that they're members of some non-conformist counterculture, they're poseurs, or they're oblivious to what effect being named Tiphane Starshadow D'leci'a Jones is going to have on the poor kid. However this is often Played for Laughs.

• If the character comes from a fictional culture where everyone's names are similarly made-up, you are also safe. If the character is an alien or otherwise nonhuman, a real name would be less realistic. If, however, the fiction culture has an established language or naming convention, follow the naming conventions rather than picking sounds at random.

• You might want to dump it in a search engine before you use it, to verify whether it just happens to have a meaning. You can get some ugly coincidences note.

• Historically, almost every name at some point in its history was a Meaningful Name. In some cultures, this is still true; it's either given by hopeful parents, earned by one's own deeds or attributes, or indicates family status or place of origin. In other cases, instead of considering the meaning, a parent might name a child after another friend or relative, or just pick a name that sounds nice. If you're going to make a point of giving your character an unusual or meaningful name, think about who chose it, and why. Because seriously, nobody is going to name their child "dark blood" in any language unless they're either horrible parents or genuinely ignorant.

• That said, be careful with overly fitting Meaningful Names. Parents cannot see into the future of their child, so if they call them Dragonslayer and the grown-up kid indeed ends up killing dragons for a living, it's plain unrealistic. It can be made more believable if there is a sound prospect that the name will be true one day, for example, said child is born into a warrior elite and the dragons are abound in the setting. On the contrary, an overly fitting surname will almost always stick out. Such things are better kept as a Character Name Alias or a nickname, but keep in mind that usually, nicknames are used only within a certain group, clique or subculture.

• The exception to the above rule on surnames is if either a) the surname is related to a family business (e.g. if your surname is "Dragonslayer", then your parents slay dragons, and their parents before them slew dragons, and so on; a Real Life example is the surname "Smith" and its equivalents) or b) the surname relates to an much older relative (e.g. everyone in the Dragonslayer Clan can trace their lineage back to Jack the Dragonslayer; someone named Smith is probably not a metalworker, nor is either of their parents, but someone in their lineage all but certainly was). Thus, in the first example it is reasonable that the character can slay dragons, as they were probably trained for it by their family for years.

• Take into consideration that some cultures deliberately name offspring names like "garbage", "stench" or such other things to ward off spirits, though.