1. Character names -- intuitive or by research on your setting/time?
2. Place names -- real places; original names; countries/worlds/cities?
3. Culture -- based in history, or by amalgamation of hitorical/fictional/mythological places?

I ask this mainly because I was in a writing critique group a few years back and was taken to task for the inconsistencies of names in regards to people and places. Some thought it was rather a pointless criticism, but others seemed to get really bent about historical/cultural consistency. So . . . I'm curious what everyone here thinks.

Thanks for those links! Much better than the ad-hazard pages I was using. I also use a Writers Digest name source book - which I think is about 20 years old now.

So here is my very flexible theory:

1. Character names -- intuitive or by research on your setting/time? I usually work within worlds too far from history to worry over the research. Besides, I like to WRITE, not to research. So, I usually figure setting and go from there. In Torkas Nahl, I was playing with the idea of one of the lost cities called Alexandria after it had been taken over several times by various empires. Somewhat like Jerusalem without the religion . . . So, I wanted factions that were ambiguously similar to Egypt, Sumeria, Persia, and Greece/Rome with the beginnings of encroachment by displaced Europeans and Eastern Indians. Basically, the city is a key stop on the main channels of commerce. That's why everyone wants control of it. Some of the names I changed by editorial suggestion, mostly by dropping surnames. Trav lost his first name [Arnoux]. Galwa lost his, too [Viscendi]. Anyway . . . I often take names for the sound and for the visceral reaction I have to the sound of their names. For gurus, I torture something from the Upanishads or Baghavad Gita. Another of my favorite things to do is to take the names of poets or other people in the world and mangle them into something that suits my purpose.
2. Place names -- real places; original names; countries/worlds/cities? See the first sentence above. Most my names are meant to either sound or look similar to some mythic place - or they're totally contrived. Torkas Nahl began as Xandr Din. I think the final name was a nod to ERB's Tars Tarkas, but it could be coincidence; I don't recall thinking about it at all.
3. Culture -- based in history, or by amalgamation of hitorical/fictional/mythological places? By amalgamation. I don't really deal very directly with cultural issues in my fiction, except through my characters. But . . . I usually have a fairly clear idea in my mind what that culture is.