Should fantasy character names have meanings?

Only if someone in the story would know the meaning. A name whose gloss the reader never learns is decoration; a name whose meaning a character explains is a scene.

Are apostrophes in fantasy names bad?

They stall silent reading and signal a certain era of the genre. Use one in a whole book, for one culture, if at all. Never in the protagonist's name.

How do I make sure readers can pronounce a name?

Give it a spelling with one obvious reading. Avoid ae, ii, silent letters and consonant clusters English does not have. Then read the page aloud; where you hesitate, so will they.

Naming a Fantasy Character for a Novel: Rules Readers Never Notice

The short answer Readers do not hear names; they see them. So spread first letters across the cast, vary syllable counts so names have different shapes on the page, avoid apostrophes and doubled vowels that stall silent reading, keep the protagonist's name short, and give meanings only where a character would know them. Test each name by reading a page aloud.

At a gaming table, a name has to be said. In a novel, it has to be seen, several hundred times, by someone reading fast. Those are different jobs, and most naming advice is written for the first one. This is about the second.

Readers see names, they do not hear them

A reader moving at speed does not sound out a name after the first encounter. They recognise its shape: the first letter, the length, the silhouette of tall and short letters. This is why two characters named Kaelen and Kieran will be confused for the whole book however differently they behave: the shapes are the same. It is also why a name can be unpronounceable and still work, as long as the reader never needs to pronounce it and never confuses it with another.

The practical consequences are simple and almost nobody applies them.

Spread the first letters

Open a spreadsheet. Put the alphabet down the side. Write each named character next to their initial. You want, at most, one major character per letter, and no two characters in the same scene sharing one. Minor characters can double up on letters the majors do not use. This one exercise fixes more confusion than any other technique, and it takes ten minutes.

While you are there, check the shapes. Names of the same length with the same initial and the same ending (Marla, Marta) are the worst case. Names with different lengths and different final letters (Mar, Tessaline) can share an initial in a pinch.

Vary the rhythm

Give your cast different syllable counts. If everyone is two syllables, the page develops a rhythm and the names blur into it. A one-syllable protagonist among three-syllable nobles reads as an outsider before you have written a word of description. A single very long name in a cast of short ones marks a foreigner or a pretension.

The protagonist’s name should usually be the shortest, because it appears most often and the reader’s eye lands on it hundreds of times. Long protagonist names get shortened by the reader anyway; you may as well choose the short form.

Spelling is pronunciation

Silent readers still stall on a name they cannot resolve. The stalls are small, but a name appears often, and the stalls accumulate into a faint dislike the reader cannot explain. The usual causes:

Apostrophes (T’lar, Ka’vek). They stop the eye and date the book. One culture, one apostrophe pattern, at most, and never on the lead.
Doubled or unusual vowels (Aeryn, Liir, Rhyaeth). Each forces a decision about the sound. One per name is a flavour; two is a puzzle.
Silent or ambiguous letters (Gh, Cz, Xh at the start). English readers have no default for them.
Consonant clusters English lacks (Vr-, Tk-, -rkh). Fine in an alien language; wearying in a human one.

The test is mechanical. Read a page aloud. Wherever you hesitate, the reader hesitated silently. Fix or cut.

Sound still matters for culture

None of this means names should be bland. Sound is how readers tell your cultures apart without a map. Elves in liquids and long vowels, dwarves in hard stops, one human nation in Latinate endings and another in Norse ones: consistency inside a culture and contrast between cultures is what makes a world feel populated rather than decorated. The human name generator offers four such registers; the elf generator three. Pick a register per people and stay in it.

Meaning is a scene, not a footnote

Fantasy names often come with meanings, and generators (including ours) show them. Use them carefully. A meaning the reader is never told is invisible; a meaning dumped in narration is a footnote. A meaning that a character explains to another, in a scene where it matters, is characterisation. “My mother named me Thaliel. It means daughter of the valley. She never saw one.” That is the only kind of name meaning worth including.

Surnames carry class

Whether a character has a surname, and what kind, tells the reader their station faster than a paragraph. Trade surnames (Fletcher, Cooper) are commoners. Place surnames (Ashford, Highmoor) are landed. Particles (de Valmont, van Aldric) are nobility. Compound heroic surnames (Ravenmere, Stormward) belong to fantasy’s own aristocracy of protagonists, and should be rationed. The surname generator separates these so you can pick by class rather than by sound.

A checklist before you commit a name

Initial letter not shared with another major character.
Syllable count different from the characters they are most often in scenes with.
One obvious pronunciation from the spelling.
No apostrophe unless the culture has earned it.
A short form exists if the name is longer than two syllables.
If it has a meaning, someone in the book knows it.
Read aloud on a full page: no stalls.

A name that passes all seven will be invisible in the best way. The reader will never think about it, which means they are thinking about the character.