Help me with my homework

[liv]

Here's a challenge for you: can you suggest me some names, which meet the following criteria:

• Plausible for actual people (ie not sounding like a spammer)
• Not really obvious defaults or clichés like "John Smith"
• Not similar to any famous person or fictional character
• Reasonably easy to spell and make a guess at the pronunciation
• Not rude or comical
• Plausible for someone from a different ethnic background from your own
• If you're feeling really ambitious, I could do with names that sound plausible for children, middle-aged people, and elderly people.

The reason I'm asking is that one of my jobs for the summer is to help write a bunch of case studies and exam questions, and we always, always struggle with the names. We try to get a balance of implied ethnic backgrounds, (and a range of ages and genders is necessary because it's often medically relevant) but we usually end up with way too many variants on things like "Robert Johnson" and "Mary Barker". It's actually surprisingly difficult to come up with names, so what I'm aiming to do is make a list that we can select from, so that we don't keep getting bogged down in inventing names for our imaginary doctors and patients.

Comments

[rising]

Some Basque names, too (male):
Beñat Uriaga
Eneco Miguelena
Aresti Olazabal
Jakome Izquierdoo
Barea Casares
Danel Salaberri
Mikel Navascues
Koldo Onaindia
Xabier Balerdi
Markel Arambel
Joseba Dicharry
Todor Errekart
Alesander Letamendi

Female:
Amaia Kareaga
Dominica Legarreta
Edurne Martinena
Elizabete Gaubeka
Katerin Urrutia
Argi Loisate
Therese Mytorena
Mirari Irazoki
Eneca Labarde
Guerechene Segura
Angela Sarasketa
Lide Zozaia
Arima Ganborena
Maite Azanza
Zuri Carrere

[liv]

Basque, woah! I'd temporarily forgotten that Basque names even existed. It's interesting, cos some of those are obviously related to Latin languages, but some are properly original. You're impressively good at this!

[rising]

Thanks. I hope they help. I figured that while some of the minorities we have here are rather more common here, I'm sure the Basque get out of their geographic region occasionally over there. :D