So I'm working on a steampunk novel in a fantasy Moroccan/Egyptian setting. A large number of characters including the protagonist and the family he lives with, are Bedouins or Arab townspeople (the protagonist is a young Bedouin boy of mixed race and some other characters are townspeople). So far, I've given my characters Arabic names through looking at name sites, (eg the protagonist's foster mother is "Nabila", one of the major characters is Zarqaa.)not really caring about how common the names are. My question is, 'Does absolute naming accuracy (in the case of "X name is really unusual") in the case of real-world cultures matter?" (I really don't want to inadvertently create characters with "inappropriate" names.)
You can always google most popular Arabic names or something. If you're writing for a primarily English-speaking (or really, any primarily non-Arabic-speaking) audience then I wouldn't worry about inadvertently picking unusual names because like as not your readers won't know any better either. I'd be more concerned about picking names which are easy to pronounce in the reader's mind. And since it's a fantasy setting, does it really matter if some names are unusual for the real world?
No, it doesn't. This is primarily for a teenage English-speaking audience. (And one problem with googling most popular names is that the names tend to be those that are common in the modern day.)
