When an author is writing a story involving characters in a fantasy or extra-terrestrial culture, names like Bill and Linda just won’t do. Who would believe that Bill and Linda would be names in such a culture that had no influence from an English-speaking historical setting?
One thing I first consider is what known language is similar to that culture’s language. From that point, you could study linguistic models and various textbooks on the subject or just fire up Google Translate, enter a phrase representative of your character, and translate it into that known language.
Once you have that phrase, mash it together in some manner similar to how contractions are formed: I am becomes I’m.
For example, when I chose Polish, Google translated Mighty Warrior into potężny wojownik.
The next thing I did was turn it into English-styled phonetics, Potemzhnih voiohvneek.
I then dropped a syllable or two to get Temzhnih Ohvneek.
The problem with non-familiar-sounding names is they cause the reader to stop briefly when trying to pronounce them, but this can be solved by developing a familiar form of the name that is used more often, just as Bill might be used more often than William. If the language provided for familiar forms of both first and last names, two choices might be Tem or Ohv.
Some languages have gender endings; the Russian last name Ivanov is masculine while his daughter would refer to herself as Ivanova. For a familiar last name, Ohv could become Ohvda for a man, using a hard-sounding extension, and Ohvshe for a woman, using a soft-sounding extension.
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