Welcome to the first rant of this book. Our topic of the day: people choosing names for their characters. Take everything here with a grain of salt, this is just my opinion.
If your story is taking place in the 1980s, it does not make sense for you to give your character a name that's a product of our current era. And I'm not talking about names that are popular now that have existed for a long time, like Sophie or Violet. I mean names that were either created after the time period your story is taking place in or basically nonexistent until after the time period your story takes place in. You should not be naming a character born in 1970 Brynnleigh or Reighleigh. Spelling matters too. It might not seem like it, but there's a big difference between the name Jordan and the name Jordyn. Everyone is free to do as they please. I just personally find character names that are inconsistent with the time period annoying.
Nationality is another thing you have to consider. Names popular in, say, America may not be popular in Russia.
And ALSO. Also. Maybe this is just a me thing, but I feel like when you're naming an OC who's a child of a canon character or a sibling of a canon character with whom they share parents, you need to factor that in. By that I mean choosing a name that the canon character/their canon parents would pick. I recently saw an OC who was a Wheeler sibling in ST, and her name made zero sense compared to the other siblings. IDEK if this is something other people think about, or if I'm the only one who's neurotic about this.
Anyway. Name your characters whatever you want, this is just my two cents.
