So I've been reading a lot of chinese novels, jp novels, korean novels and novels here and so I'm a bit confused on how to name the characters for something I'm writing. Should I stick to european names or just name them heavily inspired by east asian ones?
Stick to European if thats what you are comfortable with. If the world in your story requires something else, then do something else. Never write a story and deliberately try to be "authentic" unless it is absolutely necessary, and even then, the names don't have to be perfect. They can just "sound kinda real."
IF you're writing a story where the setting is in Japan....then sure use Japanese names. Just look up a random Japanese name generator. Who the hell cares if the names actually mean anything? I can guarantee you no one's going to stop reading just to research a name's meaning and then get pissy if it actually doesn't. And if on the absurd chance that they do, then fuck them.
If it's written in a made-up world, name it whatever-the-hell-you-want. You can have a mixture of East Asia and European or just completely random fantasy names.
Countless generators for countless names. Some say it's the best fantasy name generator site around, which is very humbling to hear.
www.fantasynamegenerators.com
This site has "real" names from over a hundred different current and ancient/extinct nationalities/ethnicities. This is under the "Real Names" tab. Then it has many, many more names under various different kinds of criteria, all fantasy. This is of course, under the "Fantasy Names" tab.
It also has some miscellaneous stuff under "Other Names" that can be useful depending on what you're writing.
Then, lastly, it has names based off of countless Pop Culture things. It won't generate names already used, but it WILL generate names simila to what is used in these Pop Culture references. I really like this tab specifically even though I hardly ever use it. The creator of this site really pulled info from so much stuff.
If this site doesn't help you with naming, then you're just not trying.
Then there is this site that I actually use more than any others, but its strictly Western European fantasy names, so it's a bit more resttrictive. I've never given this site name out but I've also noticed no one else has ever referenced it so here:
This random name generator provides lists of fantasy names, useful in role-playing games, for World of Warcraft, or in any situation where many names of characters or places are needed.
dicelog.com