[saltcured]

There is a pattern of Asian immigrants to the US adopting such "old-fashioned" names for themselves or their kids.

I'm Gen-X, born and raised in California. I have a coworker whose Taiwanese American wife is Carol. And I've seen my fair share of people in my age cohort or their offspring with names like Ann, Karen, Katherine/Catherin, Susan, Mary, Lillian, etc.

Yes, these were the names of my grandparents' generation, but they didn't go away in my experience. They just branched out from their original userbase.

[LanceH]

This brings back some memories :)

I asked some coworkers about this and they had all adopted names that sounded like their Chinese names. Except Xiaofong who didn't have anything to match. It was mid 90's so we gifted him Ronaldo (Brazilian version, best and full sized Ronaldo) and he loved it.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

These names are sometimes called "WASPonym" and they're common in many places.

For e.g. the person that you know as Nelson Mandela was at birth named "Rolihlahla" by his parents. Having a second, English name is less common now.