I was a long way in to a very detailed essay on this, but the forum ate my post. :-p

I'm not going to recreate all of that -- not right now, anyway -- but most of the people groups of Metamor are closely modeled on different cultures of our own world. The Lantonois are basically northern French; the Brekklanders are German; the Sathmorans are Gaelic (with the Irish, lowland Scots, highland Scots and Welsh each having their own provinces); the Tourniards are Spanish, Portuguese, and southern French; the Pyralians are Italian; and so on.

In Metamor City, those disparate cultures get brought together in interesting ways. Daniel Sharabi, for instance, has a Sephardi Jewish name, but his ethnic heritage is a mixture of White, Black, and Mediterranean (the latter of which includes the Jewish elements).  Evan/Eva Selindi has a Welsh given name and a Sudanese surname, but looks as blonde and fair-haired as any Northlander. Rebecca Brower has a name that is part Jewish and part Anglo-Germanic, but she looks Mediterranean (with maybe some Black thrown in). Miriam Bakhtavar has a Hebrew first name and a Persian last name. And so on.

Some of the old names use the prefixes ard' and hin', which carry over from an earlier time when they marked that you were the child of so-and-so. Fiona hin'Connaill and Malcolm ard'Valos are both examples of this. (The prefix is used only with personal names; the name of the noble house, if there is one, omits the prefix.)

For given names, the Metamorian nobles fall into two camps: those who prefer old traditional names, and those who like exotic and flowery foreign names. Sometimes they use a traditional name for a son and an exotic name for a daughter. In very large clans, like House Matthias, they tend to use anything and everything, because they have way too many kids to name them all John, George, Harold, etc.

Religious names are always popular, particularly among the Ecclesiasts. Joshua, a variant of the name of the savior Yeshua, is common in the region around Metamor, as is Yanlin, the name of Yeshua's mother. Meraists often use Merai's name as a middle name but seldom as a first name, for fear that it would be too burdensome (or possibly seen as tacky). Hebrew-style names are fairly popular among both of these denominations, though Meraists also draw on the names of the old Lightbringer heroes, which were often Germanic or Elvish.

Prominent Noble Houses: Avery; Barnhardt; Brightleaf; DeLaroque; Drauling; Halliway; Hassan; Kapler*; Lassos**; Leon**; Matthias; Moraine; Raines; Tifree; Travers; Valos.

*- Often uses ard' prefix.
**- Often uses hin' prefix.

Noble Given Names, Male: Brian*, Charles*, Ezekiel, Gamaliel, Harold, Hershel, Jack*, Jesse*, John*, Julian*, Misha*, Oren*, Preston, Richard, Robert*, Thomas*, Vincent, Xavier.

Noble Given Names, Female: Alexis*, Caroline*, Danielle*, Elizabeth, Hadassah, Iris, Jessica*, Julia, Karenna*, Kayla*, Maia, Melissa*, Morgan, Mysteria, Raven*, Rona, Sephora, Tessariel*, Zoë.


*- Names of prominent heroes from Metamorian history.

This is a short post?

Sorry about the hungry forum. I will see about feeding it soon...