Choosing a Name - What's Your Method?

I'm curious how you go about choosing a name for your new addition? What's your method?

Do names come to you that you keep in mind for future adoptees or newborns?

Do you name them after people you know, or famous characters or people? Songs?

Do you keep the new pet for a few days first to get a sense of personality?

Any conventions or superstitions? (Horrible family confession: We had a Pete and a Repeat, as kids. They were birds, so their names weren't as important.)

If you adopt do you keep the name given by the previous owner, rescue, or shelter? Do you start fresh?

I ask because I'm curious, and I have one adoptee where I am fascinated by the fact that he had a previous name that I'll never know. I didn't name him myself. The person who rescued him from the street named him and I have stuck with that name. I look at him and wonder what he was called before. I also look at him sleeping and wonder about what happened to his litter-mates. (Yes, I am a tad maudlin.)

With a new pup I try to hang on a day or two to get a sense of personality, but I often have some names that I have come across in mind. Usually, I consider a name that I came across in the past and then end up with something completely new.

I remember my parents trying to talk me out of some of my first pet names as a kid.