When I first started writing, I bought a book of baby names. I can get ethnicity from the book, origin and even the meaning of the name. That's still how I get first names for my original characters (although, having the book sitting around has raised a few eyebrows over the years
). For last names, however, I often do use the phone book like HappyGirl suggested.
The problem I run into with surnames is the issue of ethnicity. I don't naturally look at a name and associate it with a certain ethnic group. That is something that I would find very useful in your random name generator, Dandello - if we could specify the ethnic origins of the person we want to find a name for.
ML
