The Wordsmith's Forge

That reminds me: if an author plans to make a lot of characters for a given city/area, as in a novel or a series of stories, then a great trick is to obtain a phonebook from there. Some places give them away free, while others charge a small fee. You can also ask friends to give you last year's phonebook. Pick both last and first names out of there, just try to use combinations that aren't already in print together.