naming your characters before worldbuilding

Naming your characters before establishing your world and cultures is a bad idea, in my opinion. I am struggling with the problem at this moment. I created my characters' names and they all sound like they could be from the same world. However, they are from more than one culture. Names are a reflection of a culture's language, and ideally, if your world is dealing with more than one culture, then names from different cultures should sound different, especially if they speak different languages.

Take a look at names in Europe. An English name will sound different from a French name or a German name, and these will sound very different from a South African name or a Chinese name because these languages are far removed from each other in the language tree.

So, your cultures should also reflect their language and differences. A simple way to separate two cultures is to make one have a lyrical sounding language (and names) compared to a harsher sounding language. Trippask sounds different than Alania, doesn't it? When random character says that they've come from Maelasa, you can assume that they're part of the same culture as Alania. If Maelasa is in the same country as Trippask, there should be an explained reason for this for such a different sounding name. Was Maelasa founded by people from Alania?

What does a person do when they've already made names for several cultures that don't sound like they're from several cultures? Some names and places might need to be changed to reflect their differences. As much as I would like to keep the names of some of my people, it may be best for credibility's sake and to create a more realistic world. It's hard to force a language to multiple names and somehow not make it complicated. In the next story, I will definitely create the language rules to a culture before naming the characters before I get too attached to the names.