Firstly, Sonam. Her name is a real life name used in Tibet and other neighboring regions in Nepal and India and it means "merit". This is prblly. a nod to the fact that she worked hard to develop a tool to give people a birthright gift.

Tibetan spelling: བསོད་ནམས (funny enough, due to how conservative Tibetan spelling is, the name is pronounced nowadays like "Sonam" but it's written like it's "Bsodnams")

Secondly, there's Jharana. It's a common word that means "waterfall" in Nepali and Hindi. In Hindi, it can also mean a more generic "water spring", but I couldn't assert if Nepali also has this meaning for the word. This could be a reference to how from Jharana the gift of airbending and the pacifist way of life came indefinitely and in great abundance.

Devanagri spelling:  झरना

I've seen someone hypothesise (to which, I agree) that Jharana is inspired by motif and perhaps also by choice of name from the actual Tibetan myth of Shambhala and the similar fake Tibetan-inspired story of Shangri-la (yes, Shangri-la is not actual mythology, but rather a 1933 book written by a British man). Both talk about an utopian city hidden in the mountains where life is a perfect for everyone.

Shambhala, Shangri-la and Jharana kinda of have the same rhythm when saying. Similar consonants, mostly just the A vowel, 3 syllables...

Some Himalayan buddist inspirations from ATLA 2026