WordPress Natural URLs

I have the Executive template, and I have not been successful in my endeavors to create natural URLs. The URLs that are automatically assigned to each page are funky and not helpful in terms of correctly identifying the page. For example, we have an “About Us” page and the URL for it does not indicate the title anywhere – it is an utterly random URL. When I go into Permalinks and try to change the URL format from its Default setting, none of the pages can be seen. Can anyone assist? Thank you in advance!!!