I think no matter what character a writer chooses he's going to write about the same themes, because a writer's favorite thematic concerns arise no matter what the story line is, no matter what characters are chosen. Your characters are so real and so vividly rendered that they seem to live on long after the story is finished. For description, as far as characters are concerned, I try to use unique details rather than a bland inventory of a character's experience. Movement becomes a language unto itself. I have no particular method in mind when I choose names.
Striking names are hard for a reader to forget.
But the names that appear in my stories are the types of names found in rural Louisiana. Most of your stories seem to pivot on moral questions. I consider myself to be a Catholic writer in the tradition of Walker Percy. If a story does not deal with a moral question, I don't think it's much of a story. You have been both a professor and editor while continuing to write.