I don't think I've "made up" a name for a (human) fictional character since I was in college, because I found that made-up names just sound funny somehow. (This may simply mean that I'm not good at it.) I sometimes use friends, but always ask first. I've used a number of names of my old college profs, most recently the late Dr. Rachel Romano, for whom I worked my last two years at De Paul University.
When in need of a name, I often go back to old yearbooks. To keep out of trouble, I often choose a different first name, so that while sounding real, the names are not actual full names of anyone I ever knew. Very rarely I will use the name of a real (if obscure) historical figure as a kind of homage to a small-scale hero. I did this with Isaac Dripps, who was a talented steam mechanic for the infant Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the 1840s and 1850s. (He was the apprentice mechanic in my story "Drumlin Boiler.") I deliberately lean toward ethnic rather than anglo names because it adds a certain flavor to a story; hence Kowalczyk, Luchetti, Grabacki, Harczak, etc. rather than Johnson, Hayworth, Ames, or boring things like that.
I have often used names of dead ancestors, and it's become a kind of inside joke with my cousins.
In my novel I had a scene in which the hero, Peter Novilio, was looking at old books on aerospace engineering, and the authors he cites are all friends of mine in the techie SF fan community. Oh, and "Novilio" is the last name of a girl my best friend dated for a while in 1968. It was just such a cool name that I've never forgotten it.
I wouldn't think you could embed enough names of real people in a story, even at novel length, to make a difference in sales, but who knows?
Odd thoughts on naming characters
I don't think I've "made up" a name for a (human) fictional character since I was in college, because I found that made-up names just sound funny somehow. (This may simply mean that I'm not good at it.) I sometimes use friends, but always ask first. I've used a number of names of my old college profs, most recently the late Dr. Rachel Romano, for whom I worked my last two years at De Paul University.
When in need of a name, I often go back to old yearbooks. To keep out of trouble, I often choose a different first name, so that while sounding real, the names are not actual full names of anyone I ever knew. Very rarely I will use the name of a real (if obscure) historical figure as a kind of homage to a small-scale hero. I did this with Isaac Dripps, who was a talented steam mechanic for the infant Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the 1840s and 1850s. (He was the apprentice mechanic in my story "Drumlin Boiler.") I deliberately lean toward ethnic rather than anglo names because it adds a certain flavor to a story; hence Kowalczyk, Luchetti, Grabacki, Harczak, etc. rather than Johnson, Hayworth, Ames, or boring things like that.
I have often used names of dead ancestors, and it's become a kind of inside joke with my cousins.
In my novel I had a scene in which the hero, Peter Novilio, was looking at old books on aerospace engineering, and the authors he cites are all friends of mine in the techie SF fan community. Oh, and "Novilio" is the last name of a girl my best friend dated for a while in 1968. It was just such a cool name that I've never forgotten it.
I wouldn't think you could embed enough names of real people in a story, even at novel length, to make a difference in sales, but who knows?