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I agree that coming up with character names can be a tedious process. My latest story was set in 1863, so I went back to look at historical documents from that era to find period-suitable names. Town histories are a great source of names. There are also web sites that will tell you the most common names for just about any historical period. For my first novel, I must have gone through half a dozen names for the central character before I found one that seemed to fit.
Creating a backstory for each character is also essential, as suggested by one of the links referenced above, where you can create an entire identity. Before I get too deep into a story, I create a file that has each main character's name, relationship to the other characters, dates of birth, marriage or death as appropriate, plus anything else that is pertinent to their overall biography. Writing something over the course of several months, a little reminder file like that is surprisingly helpful.
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