I saw another post on here regarding futuristic names but I didn't find it very helpful. I'm attempting to write a dystopian novel dated in the year 3000. For a while, I considered using bilical names, as they seem to have withstood the test of time, but my book takes place in a nation where Christianity, along with all other religions, are outlawed and only practiced in secret. In this time period, people are obsessed with being innovative and progressive and it would make a lot of sense to have a name that implies intelligence or success or innovation. Perhaps first names would be Darwin or Galileo to show homage to the scientific minds they consider almost godlike in this day and age. I really don't want to overdo it by naming someone Zyxnrid or something ridiculous like that. I want the names to be unique and futuristic but not distracting and stupid.
for short names Kio, Mir, Glek, Lero, Rugas, Volij, Simos, Spell current day names differently. For example I just read a novel by Robert Higgins I believe, that was titd RASH. one of the names the used was Karlohs. Short stuff can work well. Another name in the same book is Bo. Also You can try putting alot of meaning into Names and spelling them to be homophonic to very deep words. for example Lona. If you say it over and over it sounds like alone. City names are cool to use. Ever heard of stories using the name Paris for a charcter? some more final Ideas popping in are Lov, Ohanne, Salamanca, Kiro, Obi, Ghor, and that's about it for now.
Last names were created when people were too numerous and needed to be specific. That's Allan the Butcher, Frank the Smith, Tony of Aberdeen. Nick, William's son. Perhaps with the need to be more specific, people could adopt the new system today of augmenting internet names, which generally need to be unique for emails, with numbers. Perhaps their date of birth could form part of the name. Or another number, like in Logan's run, where Logan's name is actually Logan Five. Biblical names are fine, even in communist Russia biblical names were used.
Every generation has their set of first names added to that people's database, so it can be pretty much anything. I do think names will tend to be more meaningful drawing from nature, zeitgeist and many times from prominent individuals of the previous generation. The latter is quite often among religious people.
Check out Iain M. Banks' Culture series. It's chock full of made up names. And they're futuristic in the extreme, as the action is happening thousands of years in the future. Try to derive some technique from there. I'm not sure how he does. At times it seems to me that he takes all of the letters of the alphabet and scrambles them repeatedly until something resembling a name comes up. How else could you come up with names like Flere-Imsaho, Mawrin-Skel, Gurgeh or Shobobohaum?(these are from The Player of Games) But the effect is there. It really feels otherworldly.
I liked how Soylent Green attempted a futuristic name - they picked an old stogy name - Shirley and chopped it to Shirl. It was familiar yet fresh and easy to pronounce.
As well as Iain M. Banks, there is Steven Erikson in the Malazan Book of the Fallen, he has a lot of names that work. If Christianity has to be banned in the year 3000 that implies that it's been around for a very long time, I think that a lot of biblical names would be embedded in the culture. Maybe, as others have suggested you could change the spelling.
Maybe pick obscure Biblical names. Zebedee, Boaz, Tobias, Hezekiah, Obadiah. The trouble with a lot of known Biblical names is that people are so ignorant of the Bible - they won't get the connection - like Mark, Titus, or Luke.
I feel like a lot of biblical names are safe and have maintained popularity, Mark, Sarah, Adam, Aaron, Mary, David. I think it might be strange if EVERY character were a biblical name (unless it was really obscure), but most are just part of culture and will probably continue to be around.
