I like to go to Forebears and look up names. It mostly tells you where in the world people with the name live.
Zombra is a name I made up (combines Zombie + Umbra). It is surprising that people do have the name. But when you think about it, almost anything can be a real name.
Except for my character named Shoo-Fly. There are Shoo and Fly but not really together.
When I created my character named Chippo (a little chick whose memories were gone, and he found himself in the treehouse surrounded by mist) google didn't show up anything with that name.
A few months later it showed a footballer "Youssef Chippo" and mini golf named Chippo.
Today I googled it again after I saw this post and I got:
I know you only asked for people but I wanted to list all those >v<
I'm surprised that the footballer is named Chippo and Google didn't show him up before.
well my story is the only thing that comes up as an exact match for "Damsel in the Red Dress." Rigamarole being a single word is probably going to have TONS of results.But most of my characters have very normal names that don't have secret meanings behind them, so it's unsurprising that Kattar is the only one without an exact match. His mother is eccentric, and all the things about the way he grew up, his name included, were unusual
wait, did you know the name was taken (I mean that there was a real person named it) when you made the story?
I mean used already. my character's names are "taken" too. But you can't patent names as far as I know.
weeeell even sooo... there are books of other Henry hares, but they usually have things like Henry Hare and the storm, or Henry Hare and the carrots...
but luckily, I should be able to play around because technically each title is Henry Hare by llobu cerval
at least that's what a lawyer friend said. I can always enlarge the official title if it comes to legal problem, since it'll be clear that it is mine.
At least the comic itself, now the character is kinda different. yeah sure his name is Henry Hare, but in actuallity, his full name is Henry Von Spots Hare the I (and his original not pun name is Zhang Ming). and using all his unique features, face spots, palette, and outfit, I can always claim as my own character.
edit: also I didn't know until months later, I actually had an aunt also discovering and asking the same thing.
Baul isn't a normal name but Little Ball of Hate is a hockey players nickname. Didn't know that when I made the comic.
Constantly. I have this hold-up where I don't want anyone to impacted (positively or negatively) with anything I make, so I Google every name for usage. The same goes for non-human characters and locations. Why, you may ask?
I knew a Harry Potter in school. The poor kid had the worst high school life, mostly due to an unrelated wizard character who'd made the headlines around then. I felt so bad for him and the ceaseless teasing he received. I lost touch after graduation, but I hope Mr. Potter's doing okay for himself...
yikes. well I don't worry much about names like that, but that sounds awful. yet even if you're careful, there will be parents who go out of their way to name their kids after characters, which still causes trouble
Some of them have names that are very common to uncommon.
I feel of common name as even safer, because lot of people would have that name. Unless my series was like Harry Potter level of popular, it would be just treated like a statistical occurence reflected in fiction. Some dude from fictional X in my series is named Y? No shit, in real life Y is a common name in X.
'Maor' is my English phonetic of my protagonist's name in chinese '毛兒' (Mao er), at that time i didn't know it means 'light / luminary' (& also a name) in Hebrew.
In google search, there's Maor Mo, Maor Levi in the first few entries.
Wow she's an Instagram model 
And has another one has a tiktok
https://www.tiktok.com/@claudita011421
"Claudita " in google search... some of the results
would you say Zhang Ming (张明) is a midly common name? or very unique?
from john Smith to Walter water how common would you say it is?
I'm also not sure if those would be apropiate kanjis for the name or not.
I think it's a very common name for Chinese people, but not so much when search the name in western medias.
The kanjis are correct, not to worry! 
Nah. I choose common names on purpose. It's more effective for the slice of life genre, more believable. I do try to make sure that they don't have the same name of a celebrity alive or dead, though.
this is my thing. because these are normal people in my story, their names don't have to be completely unique, just not the names of celebs or other famous characters
For "A Dozen Morning Glories"
There are a TON of women named Essence Walker. There are a few folks named Dominic Giang out there as well.
There are some real "Hannah Giang"s, and one kinda looks like the character, which is pretty weird. There are several 'Nicole Giang's but no "Nichole Giang"s
Several Elizabeth Walkers, but they are all middle aged white ladies, so not a lot like the character. Dorine Walker is also already out there on the world wide web, along with Angie and Erika Meng.
So yeah.
No Tiffany Chatterjee or Scarlet Caralee out there though.
