Okay well I'm working on Legionnaire, and it requires an OC or two, and I'm wondering if I should give these OCs pony names, like Diplomatic Incident and Steel Rain, or if it would be more fitting to give them human names?
How do you other, more experienced writers do it and what do you recommend?

1115610 if they are ponies, they should get pony names
that's how I usually do it, anyway

1115610 I would say it depends, if this takes place on any other place than Equestira you should have normal names. If this is in Equestria, go for pony namess.

it takes place in Equestria, but with humans in place of Ponies

1115610

I'm doing a similar story and I'm planning on using pony-style names so that it doesn't feel disjointed... the mane 6 and every humanized character from the show are going to be using their canon names; if a few random OCs here and there had names that sounded different from most of the cast I think it would come across as weird (unless of course there's a reason for those characters to have human or other-style names).

1115610

I do that… mostly cause my OC's name sounds enough like a real name he can get away with it (my profile name is his name)

I see, well my OC's names don't sound anything like human names however I believe their names are fitting, for instance Diplomatic Incident is an attache for the Equestrian foreign office and a spy. Diplomatic Incident is also a fairly central character to the story, so we'll see a lot of him. That's just one example.

1115903 well if the mane six keep their pony names I say stick with pony names for every one and vice versa, other wise it can seem a little weird to be reading a conversation between some one named some thing like Twilight and the other named something like George.

1115610

Names are culturally bound. Equestrian culture, even humanized, usually has 'pony names', so new characters in that culture would also have pony names. Non-ponies have 'human' names in the MLP universe, or at least not pony names (Gustav, Gilda, Matilda, Zecora... Cranky is a rare exception... I guess Iron Will is as well. The cows, if I recall, also have 'human names'. Interestingly, the Buffalo have human names that sound like pony names... because American Indian names are formed the same way as 'pony names'.)

1115610

Steel Rain

1115654 Then give them pony names. Otherwise, the established characters' names will seem weird and stupid.

1120638 that's the plan now

Without Spoiling, Yes and No

If all the Canon ponies in the story use pony names, use your OCs pony names