What are your rules for naming characters?

I was on a roleplaying D&D server and the DMs character was named "Lia" (pronounced with a long i as in Lie) which is a fine name on it's own, but it's the same name as one of the players characters, who was a female half-elf. So when the DMs character shows up she's just called Lia and the two are referred to as Lia and Lia for the rest of the campaign. <br><br>I've always had trouble coming up with names for my characters for this exact reason, especially when there is more than 1 of the same gender. It's easy to make a character named John if everyone else is named something else, but if you have a John and another John it's a pain. <br><br>I don't like changing a characters name just because they share it with another character, so what's your rule for this sort of thing?