I started with Lolly and I still have her. I think I have a few other decently popular villagers but nothing to write about. I had Ankha as my first move in but I took a week off to go camping a month back and she moved out while I was away.
In my current village, I had Maple, Ankha and Ruby as 3 of my original 5 villagers. I only knew that Ankha was popular at the time though, so I guess I just happened to be lucky!
In my first town, my starters were Olivia, Tammi, Camofrog, Ava, and Peck, so not much luck there. I really love Olivia and Tammi though. Stitches was my first random move-in, and I had no idea he was popular, but I wasn't surprised when I found out he was.
In my second town, I had Stitches in my starters intentionally, as I reset for him, but I also got Chrissy, too.
I think I have in the past, but I can't remember the specific villagers. In my main town, which I restarted a while ago, I had Ankha and Coco. I still have Ankha, but Coco accidentally moved. I wasn't going to keep her forever anyway, but she moved sooner than I would have liked.
I was lucky enough to get Pippy and Hamphrey, both 'tier 5,' as starters. Never did 'sell' a 'tier 1' I got so I wouldn't know about getting 'lucky' in that sense. As for high tier villagers, I got most that I wanted because of generous people who offered me, either because they saw me giving away villagers to others for free, got a villager from me for free, or (as to how I received Molly) saw that my town was devastated by a mentally disturbed guest.
Yeah, I started out with Chrissy and Lolly on release. I didn't know about villager popularity back then though, I just went with it because I liked my map and I seemed to have all-around cool villagers.
I've had Chrissy as a starter, Merengue, Diana, Francine, Bob, Chief (I didn't realize he was so popular), Maple, Flurry and Whitney as starters in different towns that I've restarted. Out of all of them Chrissy and Maple were my favorites in their towns. I've gotten Merengue and Bob as starters, more times than I can recall. I wouldn't consider myself "lucky", either. Literally, the only reason they're so popular is because people like their looks, their house exteriors, or their furniture. So, this whole "tier 1-5" crap is completely ridiculous and ostentatious, in my opinion.