A: Researching characters means spending too much time on baby name sites. One thing you notice is that names change from generation to generation, but so do the spellings. After the collapse of governments and the abandonment of family names, I figured people would get ingenious with given names to make them stand out. Many are variations from normal names (i.e. Phylep instead of Phillip), but others are their own brand of uniqueness. The other reason is that, as an author, I wanted to reinforce the message that this is a far different era than today. Using a different set of names helps establish that, but I apologize if it confuses you!
