Choosing character names (no real spoilers)

I use different methods with different species when it comes to choosing character names. None of these are hard and fast rules that I always stick to. Having all this spelled out may ruin your enjoyment in figuring it out for yourself. shrug.

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Human names are a homage to some book or movie I enjoy. The first name to be mentioned in the strip besides Rosemary, Sylvester or Mortimer was Olaf Larssen, who was a homage to the cartoonist Gary Larson.
With Gnolls and Eyebolts, I use/modify some obscure or obsolete English word that is in some way descriptive of the Gnoll's occupation or personality. In the current Saturday strips, "Finimbrun" (or rather Finnimbrun) means "trinket or knickknack", which the fellow himself is often found fiddling with. Meanwhile, to quote Wikipedia, a pergola is a garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway, or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support cross-beams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained. Helipaths are often named this way as well.
Gobules are also named this way, oftentimes "in-universe" for some quirk of appearance or behavior, due to the fact they only get names when they are tutored and learn to speak, not when they are bore.
Forest Nomes are the names of spells from old Infocom text-adventure games.
Motihauls are shopkeeper-names from the ASCII dungeon-exploration game NetHack.
Some names are created by modifying a obscure real-life "holiday"/promotional scam that occurs on the day the name is first introduced.
I've sold "naming rights" to a character on a few occasions.