Nyel Targaryen, who begins the story as the firstborn daughter of Aegon the Conquerer and later becomes Queen was named by her mother Visenya for the bell Nyel, one of the three great bells from the city of Norvos in Essos, where she was born.

Oh! oh! me! i have a fun one!

So, one of the MC's is called 'Gab' but her full/actual name is 'G4B08F'.

G4 stands for her generation (4th one after the arrival of the first settlers on the planet)
B is for the season during which she was born (spring)
08 is for the year she was born in since the beginning of that generation
and F is because she was the 6th child to be born that season.

In that culture, everyone gets a 'name' like that, but then chooses a nickname from whatever letters make sense. For example, her older brother is called Dosi or G4D05I.

Kanji Kimura.

Kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in Japanese writing. Kimura refers to Masahiko Kimura who was a famous Japanese fighter. These words reflect the character's fighting strength and intellect.

MC's best friend: Iraklis Drakos

Iraklis--> Hercules

Drakos--> Dragon

I wanted a name that shows you that this guy means business and, since it is a superhero story, make it so it evoked old and often cheesy names for certain characters names. 

Shin, the main character from my story came up to my mind after reading the unfinished short story from H.P. Lovecraft Azathoth. For some reason the first paragraph of that story was a bit strange to me and my character is basically someone who has lived a wandering life looking for something to give meaning to his life even though every now and then he would forget where he had been previously. His name means abyss.

This is the paragraph that inspired me to create him.

Quote:When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of Spring's flowering meads; when learning stripped the Earth of her mantle of beauty and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone forever, there was a man who traveled out of life on a quest into spaces whither the world's dreams had fled.

So... my story is All The Lonely People. As I was thinking about the main character's daughter, I knew I wanted something similar to older style of name my daughter has. Because of the Beatles reference in the title, I settled on Eleanor. Eleanor Rigby. All The Lonely People.

The Matriarch is part of a cult culture I created. Basically one abandons their previous life and name and adopt some kind of title that relates to them. The Matriarch is a leader and has been for a while. Other titles can be like "The Prince" or "The Nocturnal", etc. Not entirely unlike how Time Lords name themselves but my cult existed before I watched any Doctor Who so the inspiration was separate.

Kyna is named after a school crush I had in high school. Missed opportunity. I made a joke that I'd ask her out and she offhandedly responded "I'd say yes, too" and never got around it because I had no idea what the fuck to actually do on account of being 16 with no money or anything. Shoulda just asked to hang out and never did.

Matthias is just a cool German name I learned when taking German class in high school. Originally he was just called "M" but it was during an age where single-letter villains were a bit cliche so he just goes by the full name now.

Aya al-Hareem is a name I nabbed from Assassin's Creed: Origins, but Aya is a fairly common name so it works out.

Tiwa is a completely original creation. She used to be named something else in my headcanon until I actually began doing research on Native American names and what I had in mind didn't work. It was something weird like "Tikamei". I just looked up proper Native American named and shortened it to something viable.

The story is about four MCs, the names largely based upon the naming culture of ancient times.

Arete and Agave were both from noble family. They were both given a descriptive name that represent excellence (Arete) and well-born (Agave). The other two Matea (eyes) and Pryne (toad) were both name after objects. Also how commoners name their children due to lack of education. But when deciding the name, there are other references, as Matea is from Mevia, referencing an ancient satire written about a female gladiator and Pryne is from Phryne who is a famous courtesan. 

I have a thespian character who uses an alias, and ended up calling him Vincent Delestade - the naming conventions in his home land are French-based, and it breaks down to de l'estade which could loosely mean 'of the stage'. He's only a side character for now, but he's one of the most important characters overall, and one of my favourites to write.

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With All the Lonely People, one thing I'll mention is that the narrator isn't named until the final chapter. This trope is very intentional. Because the book is a journey of self-discovery, he isn't named until he fully knows himself.

Cat and Sirius are brother and sister, and complete opposites, like cats and dogs (if you know your constellations). I'd read Diana Wynne Jones's 'Dogsbody' book and that had a character called Sirius which is what inspired his name.

I'm not really sure how I named the rest of my characters. I think Amanda was after a character in a video game that kids used to play in school but I have no idea which one. All I remember is the character was a baby in the game and there was some underground mine with mine carts that you could travel in. I guess I just liked the name.

I gave my character his nick(code)name after seeking many Ancient Greek names as placeholder until I find a better one, I found a few worthy ones but the placeholder became official; Phrixus, it got an identity on its own.

Also one secondary character is named after a best friend.

Oh man, I've just been waiting for an excuse to have this conversation.  In Basic Skills my main character is named Dix, or at least that is what he goes by.  His full name is Richard William Johnson, which to a bunch of middle schoolers is just a bunch of bad jokes.  Now, someone complained in a review about his name and how he is feared by the rest of the middle school kids he knows.  He seemed to believe that that sort of thing was unrealistic.

Well, let me address that, and answer the question.

My last name is Cox.  As you can imagine, it isn't easy to get through middle and high school with a name like mine, or at least in the time I did (I hear schools work harder on bullying now).  So I fought.  A lot.  Eventually I developed a sense of humor that can take anything anyone can throw at me, and the ability to completely ignore what anyone thinks of me.  As it is a defining characteristic of my life, and who I am as a person, I wanted my main character to share a similar trait.  But we are writers, so we have to make it blatant and worse than reality or people never pick it up, so he gets three names that are bad jokes that lead to one nickname that is as bad as my name. 

"Grace."

For Cry Wolfe, I had a whole idea on the term "saving grace" and what not, but ended up never using it after leaving it as is as a short story.

That, and not being "graceful."

Hmm, when I thought about my main character's name (Onyx Silver) I wanted his name to relate to something dark or shadow. But all the names that I found didn't feel right and felt kinda edgy XD. But then I thought of the rock Onyx. And that's how I got the name XD.

The selection of ALL characters is based on towns, cities and regions of an open sandbox MMO that I simply adore and hate (bloody cash shop).
The names of the cities are based on astrology. 
And to finish, the names of faeries are based on vowels.

all the above are eastern eggs because I love those in books

My MC got her name Livia from the mother and wife of a Roman emperor, and her last name Beltaine from my favorite Fantasy MC Erin Solstice. 

Cheers for the thread, I like the variety of inspiration!

I'm absolutely horrible at picking out names. My drafts are full of characters like %Professor and %IceMagicLady and %Brother'sFriend.... 

When it comes to the point that I have to choose a name for someone, I rely on online name generators a lot. Or sometimes I'll write down one or more words that describe the character and then add/drop letters until it turns into a name I like. The most blatant example of that in my current story is an imp that I (eventually...) named Tamon. He basically looks like a monkey with bat wings, but he gets all huffy whenever anyone calls him a monkey. Because he's an imp! He's not a monkey!

Not a monkey.
Not a monkey.
Tamon.

The way that I ended up with my main character's name was rather simple really. I had the idea of creating a name that is stereotypically fitting for a British admiral and so sounds a bit upper class. So I ended up with Edward Fletcher, and I feel however Fletcher isn't that upper class it fits the rather not upper class Edward, who is only superficially posh.