Usually, when I write fantasy, I pick a type of linguistic influence for each country in the world I'm creating (could be the same influence for several countries if they are connected), and then I look at the list of names for that influence (French names, Greek names, etc) at http://www.behindthename.com/ and just scroll through the list until I find something that sounds right for the character. I don't know how to define the "sounds right" part, but in my head, even before I begin searching, the name has a certain number of syllables, or begins with a certain letter, or something like that.
After I find a name that sounds right, I check the meaning to see if it doesn't clash with what the character is supposed to be like. I don't look for a specific meaning, because in real life, the meaning of a name doesn't fit the actual grown-up individual, at most it may fit what the parents had wished for that individual to become. But I don't want the name's meaning to be the exact opposite of what that character is, because I'd feel that I'm misleading my readers if anyone knows the meaning of the name.
Occasionally, I make up names entirely, and then I just stick to the original thought of "this name should have this many syllables and should start with this letter" and I keep developing it from there.
For the novel that I'm currently working on, however, I've gone on an entirely different path. It's a detective novel, and the narrator is the Watson to my Holmes, so I've tried to give her a name that's similar to John Watson. Her name is Jane, since that's the simplest feminine form of John that I could think of. I could not use Watson as a last name, but in my head she is quite strong-willed, so I called her Wilson.
Alycia, in the same novel, is named after Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, because strange things happen to her.
Ermis (Alycia's suitor) is a made-up name, based on the Italian word "eremita", which means hermit. It suits the image I have of him in my head. Since I speak Italian almost well, my mind conjured up the word eremita on its own when I was trying to think of a name for Professor Ermis.
In the same novel, I also have one more character name that's based on a name from the stories about Sherlock Holmes, but that would be a spoiler, so I can't talk about it. The system is the same as for Jane's name: I took the name of a character from Sherlock Holmes and thought of how I could transform the name to create a new one.
If anyone is curious about these characters and their story, I'll link the novel below:
