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One of my rules for choosing names is to never use the same name twice for major characters. That forces me to come up with more interesting and fitting names than I otherwise might. For stories with real-world settings, I sometimes use Sweetmamajama’s method of choosing names according to what they mean in their original language; for example, right now I’m working on a series of related stories, each with a different main character, and all of the character’s first names mean “wise” or “wisdom” in one language or another. Also, if a character’s ethnicity is in any way important, I use that as a guide. For SF/fantasy stories, I try to use some sort of internal logic in naming the characters. Characters of the same social class, or caste, or species may have common aspects to their names, like having the same number of syllables, ending in a vowel or a consonant (or a particular vowel or consonant), etc. And characters from larger groups have more diverse names than characters from smaller groups (eg, commoners vs royalty). That’s my two cents. (I may have overpaid.)