Naming conventions

Currently trying to put together an essay for UC San Diego. It's the classic problem though of just how to begin. I spent all afternoon brainstorming and harassing people for their opinions, and I think I know where I'm bound with this topic, but... that first paragraph? Elusive as ever. But in the interest of writing something somewhere, I'm going to put down something I've been giggling about to myself for weeks now.

It's always fun to contemplate the origins of the English names you encounter among friends and students in this country. Generally it's as one would expect, middle school classes where Bobs and James' predominate thanks to a hasty scan of the textbook, and your requisite Lily's and Linas thanks to their resemblance to the pinyin of the person's actual name. Among certain high schoolers you get names like "Killer" and "Wolf King" as either defiant self expression or an in-your-face to the teacher that one rationalizes with "well, at least he's using English." Among others, you meet Kobe Bryant and Alan Iverson. Then, though, you find surprisingly high concentrations of Irises and Fionas, which leads me to my favorite aspect of all this. I know I'm guilty of this too in the name lists that I've drawn up, but you can always tell a little bit about the foreigners who have preceded you in any given place by the trail of English names that they've left in their wake. I remember naming students with Russ one day and hearing a number of suggestions that might have been more en vogue in byegone days. So I was thinking, how would you feel if you walked into a room of Chinese people and discovere that their names were all...

1) a series of preppy names like "blake" and "aspen"
2) post-prep androgyny, like "bryce" and "avery"
3) of the tradition that brought us "k'neisha" and "deshawn"
4) familiars like "jim bob" and "emmylou"
5) the entire cast of the star wars films
6) disney characters
7) characters from prime time TV
8) Arthurian legends
9) from the old testament
10)brought to you by the letter "G"
11) not English

I'd be so happy.