Character names that go well with the setting

I've always found it hard to find good names. Just picking something at random feels lame, and it makes it hard to tell people apart if there are too many of them. Using references feels derivative.

But I've seen that it is possible to do this well. Some works do interesting things with character names, using them to show something about the world. I have two examples:

• Prior names everything with a bunch of special characters, so the hero is Subject &#!, another character is Dr. +/G, there is a Z-7 device, a Chemical @73, a City XY*213... It goes well with the clinical environment and abstract art.
• Durango: Wild Lands is a postapocalyptic parallel world with people warped in randomly from around the world. The characters originally come from different places in the world, usually with common names from their language (Novak, Liu Jie, dr. Lamar...). Some go by code names, letters of the alphabet, or numbers. The game also uses different names for the player depending on who you talk to, showing the many different roles you play in the world. Your name is Ancora (an Affectionate Nickname) for those friendly with you, Rabbit's foot for Novak, who sees you as a lucky break and valuable resource, and 133 for X, who just sees you as one of many pawns to manipulate.

What are your favorite fictional names?

Edited by modrapetka on Dec 27th 2023 at 1:55:21 PM

Meowiarty from Wizard 101 - Because he is a cat and cats hate dogs and the setting is Marleybone, where dogs live, and Meowiarty is the mastermind behind some of the stuff happening in Marleybone, and since Meowiarty is a cat, and cats make a meow sound, this makes sense.

Malistaire from Wizard 101 - Because this is actually a play on words, "Malis" in his name is actually "Malice," which means with ill intentions, and is associated with death, which is his school (as well as shadow). Alistair is a base name, which is my name but spelled wrong. And "taire" which means "shut up" which is what Malistaire tries to do to the spiral.