Sally M wrote:
<grin> and that brings us to another point, names. How do people go about picking/creating names, and what do you think of the names used in the actual series? A lot of them are names that are in use now (Anna Grant, Hal Mallanby and Lauren, Bellfriar, Carnell, Travis, etc), or slightly changed (Roj, Del, maybe Deeta from Dieter?). Apart from a few flourishes like Servalan - a brilliant invention - and Egrorian, the names given to most of the characters are fairly plain ...
I found a page online that lists millions of names from different ethnicities and browse through them until I find one that strikes me. I do usually try to keep them at one or two syllables, to keep within the "feel" of the show. The three I used in the fic I'm working on right now are Melita and Lia (for two Seska) and Bay (for a male Auronar). In those cases I looked up one of the canon names and tried to pick names from the same language (Pella and Nina, Cally respectively). They're very minor characters and I didn't want to use anything that called attention to itself.
Jen McGee