A friend of mine has a theory about Jews of a certain generation (my father’s) who have names like Irving, Sidney, Martin etc. It was an attempt to “mainstream” Jewish kids into American culture by giving them “anglo” names.
He was the first to point out to me how Asian kids are going through the same thing today. There are lots of whitebread names followed by Fong, Hsu, etc.
But there’s something else going on too. I have received emails from several Asians (I assume Chinese) whose last names are obviously Chinese (i.e. like Wong, or Chang) whose first name is “Harvard.”
That’s branding.