I have lots of ways to pick names. I've written articles on this in the Game Ideas Unlimited series, but I certainly do not have time tonight to try to locate them.I hate not knowing the names of people I'm interacting with. How Stephen King picks names is out of the Maine State phone directory. Try it!!!!
What I lack is good ways to remember thousands of names of unimportant characters and keep them all straight. I have no problem with "the stableboy", "your usual waiter", "the hotel concierge", "your boss", "the general".
Now, I could use E. R. Jones trick: all stableboys are named Bob, Henry is always a thief, and so with dozens of other bit parts. I don't think that makes it more realistic, and I'm not sure it makes it that much simpler.
In Mystery of the Vorgo I use mnemonics. The Histor-ian who is head curator of the museum is named Hester Ryan; the museum security chief is named Art Keys; the stage magician is Merlin Mandrake; the Banacek-like insurance investigator is Chuck Banner. Do that too much, and people start to snicker, but if you limit it you can get away with it sometimes. On the other hand, it's not always easy to come up with mnemonics for character names, particularly when you're juggling so many worlds in which there are characters very similar in various ways. My Dancing Princess princesses are named in alphabetical order--Margaret, Nerene, Olivia--and so are the five demons Abishaw, Babbareth, Cathcart, Dicalus, and Echevar; those, though, are groups. In the Mary Piper worlds, there's a connection between the two worlds--Captain John or Captain Johnson, security officers Brown and Bronski. This helps, but it's not perfect, and I am always looking up names in that world.
Sometimes I'll steal someone out of my own life and make him a character in a game world, complete with name and personality. Graeme met First Officer Ron Grosso, my non-seafaring cousin, on a ship he took out of British Columbia, because I needed someone I could remember and detail quickly.
But I shouldn't have to look up names in your world, either because you want me to use them or because you want to use them when talking to me. I don't care what you call the non-player characters if I don't name them, but when you use the names you give them you'd better also say who they are in a way I understand: "Sam Ash, my boss". I have enough things to remember, and have trouble remembering the names of people at church or at game conventions or sometimes even in my living room.
--M. J. Young