Call me lazy, but I just use a random name generator. (There's one
here, it was the first one that came up in Google).
It looks to me like you are doing a semi-real life type comic and in real life, nobody gets to pick their name. It's given by the parents, so you could name them Ally, Barry, Charles and Danni (A, B, C and D) and it won't make a lickin' difference to the story.
Nicknames on the other hand are an entirely different matter. A character could be called John Stevenson (fairly average name) but have a nickname such as Guz. Why? Because he's a little heavy, likes to eat and drinks like a horse.
Nicknames are either chosen by a person ("
Call me The Man
okay?") and that's the way they introduce themselves or the nickname is given to them by their peers ("
Everyone calls me 'Da Nerd'") and will thus represent something about the way they see themselves, or the way others see them.
For sci-fi or fantasy, it's a different game. That's when a name becomes more important because it becomes a 'handle' for the reader to register something about the character. A name like "
Conan the Barbarian" tells you lot about the character without having to look at a picture. Likewise, the name "
Q" will define the character a bit.
But if your characters are based on "real life" type thing (meaning humans living in a city on Earth, as opposed to following events in the lives of actual persons) then the name isn't really relevant or important (except to denote ethniity).
That's my 2 cents.
Edit: and if you're smart, you'll give them
short names, because you'll need to write them over and over again....
