OK, so…
I sent an SMS asking her, and she phoned me back. Basically, she said that “Hearing it, I feel like it’s a person that appears more than once, and continues appearing”, but when I brought up the point of it being only the name appearing she said “That’s true, you can’t know”. So, basically… ambiguity. But the fact that he’s been appearing more than once still holds true. And isn’t it weird for a name to be recurring and nobody taking notice of it? I guess I’d like to hear Checkhov’s opinion on this. Wouldn’t it be weird to have a recurring name of someone who hasn’t appeared in person? Do we have anything like that? Haibara’s parents, maybe? Also, could someone get Fujiwara’s opinion.
I was about to write something more, but I’ve forgotten. This thing is driving me literally nuts, now I’m starting to think that している doesn’t necessarily mean “appeared more than once”, even though my teacher said that. Ambiguity, ambiguity, ambiguity. I’ll try asking some more Japanese people if I can find them.
Edit: I’m overthinking this way too much. In the end I don’t think Aoyama’s phrase means anything particular. Could’ve appeared once, twice, more, name only or flesh and bones.