靖子
Reading 容疑者Ｘの献身 (The Devotion of Suspect X) by 東野圭吾 (Keigo Higashino).
Learning the characters for Japanese names is something different.
靖子, Yasuko. In Japanese 靖 is only a name character now, and it's famous because of 靖国神社/靖國神社 Yasukuni Jinja.
Yasu "peaceful" seems to be same yasu as in 安い yasui.
In Chinese 靖 was used for a word that was was variously written as 靜, 靖 and 竫 with a range of meanings "be quiet, tranquil, peaceful, to rest", "to stop, keep quiet", "pure" (Schuessler, 2007, p. 318).
I'd guess that 青 (my etymology is here) is the phonetic in 靜 but some scholars are not sure (Seeley at al.) But why 竫? 爭 can't possibly have the same sound value as a phonetic can it? (cf. Schuessler, 2007, p. 611.)
Compare 浄/淨. Scholars suspect that 淨 is an abbreviation for 瀞 (ibid.). Maybe it's the same with 竫?
How to remember 靖子? Perhaps: yasu, peaceful, same meaning as 安 (and 靖國神社) might remind one of quiet/peaceful 静/靜, take the phonetic and add signific 立 (my etymology is here), a pictogram of a standing person. So Yasuko is a peaceful person? Meh.
米沢
Then I had to look up the name 米沢 Yonezawa. Why yóne? Apparently an old word for komé (JMDIC). 「よね」はお米だよね。 (my etymology is here)