Oh, not criticizing your list -- just pointing out that since she didn't specify location, that's another thing she should bear in mind for fine-tuning such a set of random names; even within a more cosmopolitan setting, there are going to be little shifts in regional demographics that can help give things the right flavor with a bit of extra attention. In a Philly setting, for instance, I'd expect to see a bit more Italian and Eastern European surnames than in DC; someplace like San Francisco or Toronto should have a slightly higher proportion of Asian surnames, that sort of thing. For a similar list in Hawaii, for instance, Asian and Pacific Islander surnames would be much more common than in other parts of the US, and European names primarily drawn from the British Isles (both directly and indirectly, by way of the New England missionary connection), Portugal, and Spain-via-the-Phillippenes; Middle/Eastern European names are comparatively much, much rarer.
Personal names are more fluid - by the second or third generation in the States, most people are given mainstream U.S. names
Although again, that can vary a lot regionally, and after a generation or two of "assimilated" names you will sometimes see the pendulum shifting in the other direction with folks returning to ethnic names. Then there are the ethnic/international names that become trendy outside of the original culture, like the 1950s vogue for French girl's names, or the similar trend in I believe it was the 40s and 50s for "Juanita"; and in more recent decades there's been the boom in Celtic names. You see a similar mix-and-match effect in place like Hawai'i where intermarriage is much more prevalent than the national norm; there's a whole subset of shorter Hawaiian given names like Lani, Keone, Ikaika, Malia, etc. that are popular first names in the islands even amongst folks who are not directly of native Hawaiian descent. (There's also just a lot of mainstream names that for whatever reason are a lot more popular in the Islands than they seem to be on the Mainland, and a local version of the roll-your-own creatively-spelled/combination name that's a little bit reminiscent of some classic Utah Mormon naming practices (http://wesclark.com/ubn/)...)
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Personal names are more fluid - by the second or third generation in the States, most people are given mainstream U.S. names
Although again, that can vary a lot regionally, and after a generation or two of "assimilated" names you will sometimes see the pendulum shifting in the other direction with folks returning to ethnic names. Then there are the ethnic/international names that become trendy outside of the original culture, like the 1950s vogue for French girl's names, or the similar trend in I believe it was the 40s and 50s for "Juanita"; and in more recent decades there's been the boom in Celtic names. You see a similar mix-and-match effect in place like Hawai'i where intermarriage is much more prevalent than the national norm; there's a whole subset of shorter Hawaiian given names like Lani, Keone, Ikaika, Malia, etc. that are popular first names in the islands even amongst folks who are not directly of native Hawaiian descent. (There's also just a lot of mainstream names that for whatever reason are a lot more popular in the Islands than they seem to be on the Mainland, and a local version of the roll-your-own creatively-spelled/combination name that's a little bit reminiscent of some classic Utah Mormon naming practices (http://wesclark.com/ubn/)...)
(Yep, also a name junkie here! *grin*)