Another one I find difficult to answer. What characters "count"? Ones where you have a decent idea of their personality and history? Ones you expect to be writing across multiple stories? Ones you wrote stories about already?
I definitely don't count most named people from flash fiction - I needed a figure who did this and that for the story idea, and slapped a name on them (or not), and usually have no idea about them beyond that.
Nico, Sylvie, and Daaren I wrote about already, and want to write about more. Xan, too.
I wrote a few secondary characters on storyboards... Of those, I'm kinda curious about/possibly interested in keeping Evrard and maybe Jory from Kit-Fox, but no-one from Random Encounter. Well, maybe apart from a little bit I think Kirrya needs to do.
From my 2005 NaNo attempt, I guess Gabriel stuck around most (he's also the only one so far who showed up in a Fridaily Fiction story longer than two lines of dialogue)... An older version of Jessica is sticking around, too, mostly I don't know if I want to knuckle down and (re)write the main story. The, um, 4-5 fae are more bit-players, though they are useful support.
I'm not sure how well Manuel works as a character, but there is at last one idea I find funny and want to write down some time.
There's a handful to a dozen people in my head related to Daaren's backstory (the handful having their own lives, too, rather than mostly being "related to Daaren in a way").
uh, yeah, I don't know. I'll stop, or I'll sit here all day.
As for the second part of the question: I started out making up more guys, lately I focus more on the gals, really.
I'm trying to fight my culturally ingrained habit of "if there's no special reason for a character to be female, they are male". (E.g. in the first draft, both people in Down a wrong path were male, but there wasn't any reason, apart from stereotypes and sexist real world history, which isn't a reason at all when writing fantasy.)
