I've already tried completely common names, and other than "Jason" they all sound bad, and I think that one only sounds good because of the Argonauts. Any lists or generators sound like stuff from a Harry Potter parody, for example, Buwand Dumblegan, Gobus Jugabin, Bubab Himal. Those are from 3 different sources, by the way. And anything I make up is nonsense. What do you guys do for ideas?
I assign a non-English language to each created culture, then pick names from that language for characters of that culture. Real language name generators and baby name books are helpful here. For example, the Marchers got assigned German, so they get German names. This basic tactic works for place naming too. Dig into the real language's place naming conventions, then mix and match with the aid Google Translate, an English to whatever dictionary, your own knowledge of the language you picked, etc.
Once you know which historical period you want to draw from, you might try the Medieval Names Archive at https://s-gabriel.org/names/index.shtml - it has a wonderful variety of lists both well-trammelled and some quite obscure
I once got a great tip which I also posted in this forum a couple of days ago. I'll take the liberty to quote myself here:
From my point of view, keep the names simple. I know that when I open a book of high Fantasy (which I do occasionally read) and see a bunch of names that are, essentially, gobbledegook (with apostrophes!) I immediately close the book and move on. Bilbo. Frodo. Gandalf. Aragorn. Boromir. Gollum/Smeagol. Galadriel. Gimli. Legolas. (From Lord of the Rings.) Jezal. Glokta. Ardee. Logen. Ferro. Bayaz. (The First Law Trilogy.) These are the kinds of names that are unique, but easily remembered, easily pronounced, and are different enough from the others in the story to keep straight.
I am exactly the same when leafing through the fantasy section for a new book to read. If I don't like how the character names sound, it's an instant turn-off. You see it in the map inserts often too in how some of the countries and cities are named. One good trick is to corrupt common names. Sometimes they will still have some semblance of their precursor but with an exotic twist. Sometimes, you can make them sound completely different. All it often takes is the change of a single letter or syllable. (Peter --> Petyr, Geoffrey --> Joffrey, A Game of Thrones, GRR Martin) Sometimes you can get much larger changes in the sounds. (Saladin --> Kaladin, Seth --> Szeth, The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson) Now of course, I can't speak for whether Sanderson really did use this method to name those characters, but it's easy to see how one might get there relatively easily just by having a bit of a play around. Finally, here's an example from my own work: (Lysander --> Eusander) What a difference a single letter can make! Give it a go
I write some lower fantasy stuff and sci-fi, so I'm not coming at this from exactly the same place, but I typically keep it simple. There's nothing wrong with using real world names -- you can use ones that are uncommon enough that to some people they seem like fantasy names, and to others they don't. And modifying real world names with a different spelling or slight change in pronunciation keeps them recognizable but feeling memorable and unique. When it comes to fully manufactured names, I typically go for something that isn't going to be tricky to grok -- something with familiar phonemes and not a bunch of accent marks and apostrophes. Sometimes you do want something that seems really alien, though. In that case I'd go for something more lengthy and/or something with phonemes that don't crop up in English, maybe something too heavy in either consonants or vowels so it feels difficult to get your mouth around.
This was what I did for my other races. I picked a language or two. Then I wrote a list of words I associated with that character like 'beauty' 'jealousy' 'fire' and I used an English translator to get the words for those things. Then I blend the name (if possible) But I was going to act a similar question myself as I'm unsure about naming characters.
