The names come from various sources. Some of them are nicknames I hear in Chinatown, because the Chinese Americans from a certain generation had colorful nicknames like Doggie. Sometimes I like the sound of a name, or sometimes there's a hidden meaning. In the novel I'm working on now, there's a character called Purdy because I had an English teacher by that name. That's a good question, but it's like asking a mother who her favorite child is.
Different characters have different associations.
I like all my characters for various reasons. The hardest ones to do are the villains, like my old Chinese schoolteacher. I start to see them from their own points of view. Then I realize my old Chinese schoolteacher probably had reasons to whack me with a ruler. Well, I like all kinds of stories, and I usually work on several stories at once.