Character Names in Uniting the Heavens

I answered a question on Goodreads a few months ago, and I figured I’d share it here as well for those of you who don’t use Goodreads. The question was: How do you decide the names of your characters?

I love names, and I've always been intrigued by meanings behind names, as well as their origins. It's fun to learn how parents name their children—do they blindly pick a name out of a book? Is there a family name that just gets passed on? Do they name their kid after a person? A place? A specific...