Where do the people live? Or if foreign or from foreign descent, where do they originate?
www.behindthename.com is a damn brilliant source for names by language in which they're used, and name etymology. It's my go-to whenever I can't pull a name out of my ass.
Here, I'll give you a run-down for some names I put together:
- Niloufar Aliaabaadi: She is Iranian, so I picked out her first name from Persepolis. The surname I found in a list of Iranian surnames.
- Benjamin Winesap: American mutt. I actually picked the last name from a captcha. The first name is from Benjamin Netanyahu, who has a similar personality.
- Jack Clive: Jack I pulled out of my head because he "looked like a Jack". This guy never even got a name until later in life because he's a parentless cell culture clone. The project he came from was called One Fifty Four. That number in Roman numerals is CLIV. I put an E at the end to make his last name.
- Vivian Hart: All pulled out of the hat. The name Vivian gives me the impression of an unimpressed, watching young woman with long black hair, so I named her after her appearance.
- Sachiko: The name for a Japanese man's pet mountain lion, which I found in a list of female Japanese names on behind the name. I picked this one because of the "sachi" element meaning "happiness".
- Borghild Brynlagsdottir. Borghild I plucked directly out of Norse mythology, but she has nothing else to do with Borghild Sigmund's wife. Brynlagsdottir is a patronymic: "Brynlag" is the name of her father, and "dottir" means daughter. I created the name from the elements "Bryn-" armor/protection, and... uh..., I actually have no idea what "-lag" means or where I got it from. Perhaps I should swap that piece out for something more plausible. The names alliterate because name alliteration is very common in the Germanic tales: Hrothgar Healfdening, Scyld Scefing, Thruðr Thorsdottir, etc.
edited 23rd May '11 12:20:29 PM by annebeeche
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.Here you go, my good fellow :)
http://www.behindthename.com/random/
http://kleimo.com/random/name.cfm
The first two results for googling "random name generator" :P
For cities, I usually look up in wikipedia lists of real cities until I find one that sounds interesting.
Suffer not the witch to live.
Please rephrase that, I have no idea what you mean.
A lot of common names today actually come directly from Latin: Vivianus, Julius (Juliet, Julio), Lucius (Lucy, Lucille), Antonius (Anthony, Antonio). Just because the language is dead doesn't mean the names are.
edited 23rd May '11 12:23:11 PM by annebeeche
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.Are you talking about languages with little-to-no written material, like Proto-Germanic?
What is exactly your problem, then? Either go learn about how names in that language were put together (For example, names in the Germanic languages were usually composed of two elements), find a dictionary or wordlist, and start making names.
Or reconstruct dead-language forms of newer names by translating the name elements using the wordlist.
edited 23rd May '11 1:32:03 PM by annebeeche
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.Actually, it's very easy to find free information on dead languages. I was able to find a pretty extensive Proto-Germanic wordlist off of some dude's google pages.
Most people who host wordlists for dead languages are professors and linguistics students on pages that look like they were written in the 90's.
edited 23rd May '11 2:02:39 PM by annebeeche
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

I'm sure all of you have read bits and chunks of the story I have.
The problem is that I am not good with coming up with names for people and places.
What would you suggest to help me come up with naming the characters because I have an idea of who is who just not sure what's the name.