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I agree with you about the naming characters after people you know. When you have a face to the name, it's hard to put a different face to it. The same goes with personalities.

I have one character named after a friend of mine, but it's not his actual name, it's a nickname of sorts.

I use Behind The Name for normal names, and for fantasy ones, I look into az Irish / Scottish index or use my own "language"s vocabulary to put something together. Or simply mistype a word, look at it "wow, fantasy name!" and save it for later uses.
My last one is Voth. I found it randomly, but I think he's going to be a bald, fanatic, skinny Inquisitor type. mrgreen And probably not 100% human.

i actually I'm started to use a letter system i made. Like how the characters personality is to the first letter, their bio for the middle, then find one word that matches and look it up in translation.

I'm reworking a short story I wrote several years ago, and for some inexplicable reason, I'm uncomfortable with having the two characters in the story be named Hazel and Gabe. And I think the only real problem I have with it is because I like both names. Maybe I'm afraid it'll show?

It might also be because Hazel is an old woman, and I think of that name as being one of the quintessential "old woman" names, along with, say, Maude and Doris. No offense to any Maudes or Dorises out there. It might just be that Hazel is too fitting of the stereotype.

I have a few lot of naming rules when writing:

-With rare exceptions, I never look up the meaning of a name. I like to pick a name that sounds nice; that way, if the name's meaning fits the character, it is coincidence and does not feel "picked out" to be perfect for them. I do the same thing with symbolism in general, too. I ignore it, and if it crops up, it crops up naturally.

• One of my rare exceptions is if I need to know the meaning. For example, I have a deformed German character, but I needed to pick a name that did not mean "king," "wolf," or other strong names that German names are prone to falling into. I only looked to make certain the name's meaning did not imply strength at all.
  
• The other exception is for looking up aliases that would fit a character, i.e., something they would choose. So, for example, Bob Johnson, a werewolf, has used his alias to its prime and people are starting to get suspicious that someone can live for sixty years and still look twenty. He moves away, changes his name to Richard Thorne and starts over. For the sake of this example, "Richard Thorne" (literally "Great Ruler of the Thorn Bush") has meaning to him because there was a thorn bush he used to hide under as a werepup for protection, and since that was his spot, he "ruled" it. Only Richard would get the joke, and even if the thorn bush part never made it into the final cut of the story, it is still something significant to the character in why he chose that name.

-If it is a human or once human, it gets a normal human name. So humans, vampires, werewolves, even my Frankenstein's monster knock-off all have normal-sounding names. I also go through great lengths to avoid:

• V-names for vampires (Vlad, Vladimir, Vladislaus, Vladlena,...)
  
• Names that are obvious for the species (Lupin, Romulus, Remus, Luna, Selene/a, Carmilla, Dracula, Alucard, Vlad...)
  
• Names that are clearly made up and fancy sounding (Sanguinella Bloodthyrst of the Night, Remus Moonhowl), unless it is something the character would choose for himself. And even then, I avoid it being utterly ridiculous unless it is in-character and not without consequence (yet to do something like this, but if, for example, I had a werewolf who tried to sound tough by calling himself "Lupine Bludclaws," it could quickly become a mocking and regretful nickname if he could not live up to it, and the name itself became synonymous with "he who has much ego and no skill").

-If I make up the species, I can make up names.
-If the species exists, but is not human or once-human, it can have a made-up name.
-If it is a nickname/alias/etc. that the character made up or someone else made up for him/her, or if the character's parents are "clever," I can make up a name.

• These last three obviously do not apply to stories where the whole world is fantasy-based (like, a far-away land called Garadian, where our hero is a human named Samk with his elf buddy Trillf, etc.), but since I usually write in our modern world...

-I try to pick names that are familiar, but not commonly seen. So nothing too "out there" unless there is a good reason for it, and nothing so common that it becomes, "Oh, more Toms, Dicks, and Harrys"
-Family, ethnicity, culture, time, and place all have their factors in what I choose to name my characters. No "Americans with random Japanese names" here, and no "Abriannas" in the 1400's, either.
-Anything that falls into "Mary Sue Classic" territory is also avoided. No gem names, no flowers, no months, no Hunters, no Ravens, no virtues, and no name that is obvious to a character trait or occupation (like Hunter who hunts or Blaze who is a hot-tempered redhead. Plus, Blaze is a horse's name XP).

• If I do choose to use a "Mary Sue Classic" name, I limit it to only one of those names per character, I will have more than one character (if possible) to have such names so they do not stand out, and I will likely assign such names to characters who are secondary/background characters, or characters where it does sort of "fit" by following the rules established above.

-Weird/uncommon spellings are fine if they do not go overboard. For example, "Cassie" or "Cassy" vs. "Kassye" (though "Kassye" can certainly be used for a non-human if it fits the culture. XP)
-Nicknames do not have to follow the above rules, so long as they have some semblance of common sense when applying them.

Aside from figuring out what to name my characters sometimes, following those rules definitely helps to keep myself on track.

I make my names up. Like Esto meaning water and air, Beau meaning fire and earth. Taranels my favourite I 've also got Querl and someother scary ones.