I used to have such a hard time coming up with new names for characters, locations, and the like; it seemed like a haphazard process of jumbling sounds together, hoping to stumble across something that was the right balance of other-worldly, yet familiar, as well as compelling and original. I have more recently discovered several tricks and methods which take a lot of guesswork out of the process, and I wanted to share them to both help any other author who is struggling like I did and simply because I find the subject fascinating.