I use X as a placeholder. His friend X, Uncle X, baby X, pet X, and event X and so on.
Lots of times I don’t know what the character’s name is and I don’t have time to go searching baby name websites for a good name. So the 
character becomes X on the page. It’s a silent reminder to find a name later.
It’s the same thing for scenes. Sometimes I’ll be writing and I need a scene to show something somewhere in the middle of the story. I’ll insert Scene X in big bold letters wherever the scene needs to be.
As for why X and not A or – or some other symbol as a placeholder? I don’t really know. I suppose X represents the unknown to me. No doubt this is a result of spending years in the classroom being told to Find X.
How do you deal with unknown characters?
Story Treasury 
In the book I’m two steps away from releasing (final edit then formatting), there are characters named XXX, YYY, ZZZ, and AAA. Three letters doesn’t appear in any common English words, so it makes a global search/replace (when you do finally figure out their names) pretty easy.
XXX just makes think of things not child friendly!
Interesting. X is sometimes used for the mystery person in stories.
I’ll usually insert a ? or […] for sections or titles to fill in later. I use the second, sometimes with notes like [edit: finish…] something I can quickly search the document for.
That’s a good way to do it.
This is a great post for X – I’m so impressed by everyone who managed a good one today! Your method is a great idea; I’m more likely to spend way too long researching names. I think I should adopt your way instead 🙂
X is a hard word, yes! It lets you research only when you have time!
I’m like Larry – I use XXX to show missing information.
I have never used that!
X…that’s a good idea! It bugs me, though. I actually stop to give the character a name. I use online name generators and baby name sites, that sort of thing. But I often have to change character names because I realize they don’t quite fit.
Stephanie
http://stephie.5741.blogspot.com
I have done that before. It’s a little annoying.
I use the letter X when I’m writing book reviews and I can’t think of what to say for a part-then I know I need to come back and fill in the spot later on-funny that you use it as a filler/come back to this spot letter too 🙂
I have never done that for reviews!
That’s a good idea, but I don’t think I could use it. It would drive me nuts to have an unnamed character in the middle of my story or have a blank spot that would need to be filled in. I couldn’t go forward with the story until I’d named and filled in. Just one of my weird idiosyncrasies.
Well at least everything is filled in and good when you continue!
What a great post for “X”! I am like Lori in that I usually just make up a name on the spot, but then I go back later and fix it. I tend to enjoy doing research about names so I often do go back and change them as I write…
Thanks! I try out names, sometimes, write them down in the sentence and see how they look.
Finding names for characters becomes really really tough especially as I dont write fiction often. I do begin with ‘X’ and add names as I go along.
Yeah!!! It is hard, because it needs to be exactly right.
That’s a good idea Sonia. ^_^
I think so Helen!
I sometimes use X as a placeholder, or I go ahead and use a name or place and find and replace all later.
As long both are easy to find!
Probably because X is an easy letter to find because it’s hardly used.
Never thought of that, but yeah. It’s a way to make use of its infrequency. Though Z appears infrequently, too.