There are not a huge number of symbolic names in Star Wars, but there are some. The most obvious is "Endor," which shares the name with the forest where King Saul went to consult with a witch. "Hoth" may be another example. (See below).
To a German speaker, "Alderaan" also seems to have a straightforward etymology. "Alder" means "eagle" in German, and the eagle has strong connotations of freedom in America. For a long time, I figured that this was all there was to the name "Alderaan." However I recently noticed that "Alderangriff" (meaning "eagle attack") was the code name used by the Nazis for the beginning of the Battle of Britain, the largest air battle in history, in which the Luftwaffe's goal was to devastate Britain entirely from the air. This sound not dissimilar to the was that the planet Alderaan was destroyed from space. There is also evidence of other Nazi-inspired planetary names in the original Star Wars films; Hermann Hoth was a German general, best known for commanding Operation Winter Storm ("Unternehmen Wintergewitter") during the Battle of Stalingrad.
Especially to somebody who does not speak German, it might seem natural to split "Alderangriff" as "Alderan-Griff," rather than the correct "Alder-Angriff." I don't know anything about the German language skills of George Lucas or the people on his production staff. So is there any information about how exactly the name "Alderaan" was selected for Leia's home planet?