I started with Totodile in Gold and Crystal and Cyndaquil in Silver. I always go for the water starter in my first game of a generation (at least) (in this case, that was Gold). I think I actually started with Totodile on Silver at first as well, but at that point, I was just using Silver as a storage pack/trading source for Gold and Crystal. Several years after I got Silver (sometime after Gold died in 2006), I finally restarted my Silver game, made a "real" file, and played through the game with the Cyndaquil line.
I don't think I've ever started with Chikorita, aside from playing the first 15 minutes of the game or so to trade it to another file.