Kosh

Dunno, but I can tell you why the Storm Trooper call sign was "THX-1138"!

If the punn was not intended to be obvious, then I have to ask again why would the author of GMk use a town which did not exist, and which the intended audience would know didn't exist? Seems like that would make people suspicious of the "history". (what I'm getting at here is, are we SURE that the place didn't exist? Or could it have been overlooked).

Vorkosigan

Because he is not writing history, but fiction! Maybe the intended audience knew -- I doubt it, as how could an audience in Rome verify whether there was a town in Palestine called "Arimathea?"

Perhaps the resolution of your question is that the writer is presenting fiction intended to look like history, like ancient Greek novelistic fictions were intended. The Greek narratives of the first-third centuries grew out of the historical tradition and retained many of their conventions. Perhaps both writer and audience experienced it as interesting historical fiction. How would you propose to settle the question?

It really doesn't matter whether the town exists or not. What counts is that the name signifies. In one of my favorite SF books there is a representative town called Middletown. There are real Middletowns, but the point is that the name tells the reader that the town is intended to represent ordinary Americans.

Vorkosigan