I have a reason for almost every name I choose. “Luke” has a positive connotation, being the name of a Gospel writer, and “Whiteman” represents his morality: pure and righteous. “Sonata” is a kind of musical piece, beautiful and melodious, yet “Steele” brings to mind hardness and the unforgiving sharpness of a sword.
Names are how you refer to characters and will create their own connotations within the story, depending on how the reader responds to the character. If you like Luke, for example, you will come to associate good things with his name. It might even bleed into real life: if you meet someone named Luke, you may be more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt than someone named, say, Draco (Malfoy, anyone?) Am I the only one who does this?
That’s why I take great care in naming my characters. The more prominent they are in the story, the more time I spend on deciding their name. I had a long, convoluted process for deciding on the name Matthew Wolfe, and even though I could explain it to you, I’m not going to. I’m pretty proud of that one, though; I think it’s the perfect name for him, especially since even after I named him, aspects about his name have popped up that conveniently fit into his personality and story. But enough about that.
Character names are not the only kind of names you have to pay attention to – places are crucial as well. Mordor sounds evil with its r’s and forward o’s. Narnia sounds wonderful and magical with its n’s and open -ia ending. Of course, we associate these names with certain feelings because of their roles in stories, but the names encourage those connotations.
I’m a fan of using Latin and Greek words in names. Latin words sound cool and are close enough to English to still sound familiar, especially since English has a lot of words with Latin origin. For example, “aethra” sounds light and airy, right? It’s Latin for “air” or “sky.” It’s like wanting to name a dragon character something uncreative like “fire” but totally getting away with it because you name it Ardesco (first person singular form of “to take fire” in Latin) instead.
Greek is great because you can draw on all the meanings from mythology and the New Testament. Greek words transliterated into English (meaning you change the Greek letters into their English equivalents) tend to sound more awkward than Latin ones in my opinion, but you can still make use of them. In Freeflight, the California town in which Matthew lives is called Kalypto Point, which comes from the Greek word καλυπτω meaning “concealed, hidden, covered.” Matthew hides his dissatisfaction and regret, concealing it behind a cocky attitude, alcohol, and sex. Amber has to dig past all of that to find the truth to things, while her own past is hidden from her because of her memory loss. At the same time, 1 Peter 4:7 uses the word in the phrase "love covers a multitude of sins," which is lived out in Amber's eventual forgiveness of Matthew for wronging her (spoiler alert? Well I guess that's kind of dumb to put after the fact.)
In short, names are awesome, and I admire authors who put as much thought into them as I do. J.K Rowling is one who has a ton of meaning behind her names, and it adds so much depth to the Harry Potter books. There are whole pages dedicated to this. Names can add a lot - and take away a lot - from a character, and they need to be something your readers won't mind hearing page after page.
So basically, you shouldn't name your hero Poopface. Unless you're being ironic.