And speaking of uniqueness and frequency of name usage among races or ethnic groups, returning to the question asked in this thread's title "What's in a name?", here are some thoughts that might be of interest to some here:

Name origins & meanings can help a person develop both a positive self-concept and a positive sense of one's group.

In the United States, and perhaps in other "Western" civilizations, most sound of a name than the origin & meaning of a name. Learning about name origins & meanings is a fun past time. Most people pursue such information when they are or someone they know is expecting the birth of a child. That is why websites and books with this information are usually called "baby name" websites and "baby name" books.

In addition to how a name sounds, people selecting [or making up] a name take into consideration who has that name {or has had that name
-parents, relatives, celebrities and other famous people. Also, increasingly since at least the late 1960s/early 1970s after a number of African nations received their independence from European nations, African Americans began to express their pride in their African heritage by selecting non-European & non-Hebrew personal names for themselves & giving these names to other adults and to their children. In my opinion, because of this African pride phenomenon and also because of the attention given to sounding out words in the phonic reading system and because of the tremedous influence of the hip-hop counter culture movement, how a name {and other words}look in written form {how the name is spelled} has been increased in importance. Thus, in ranking what is important in name selection, I would say that the name's sound is most important; who the name is associated with has secondary importance, and how the name is spelled and written-with accents, capitolization of the first letter of the second syllable, and/or use of a hypen-is thirdly important. Where the name came from has some importance to those Afro-centric Black people who don't want a European name for themselves or their children {but may accept names from non-African languages that sound "African" or names from the Hebrew language if they are unique enough and again, if they don't sound like British names-since-imo-that is what is generally meant by European to many Black people. What a name means is last in importance and most often not a consideration at all.

It seems that uniqueness in names plays a larger role in name selection for more African Americans than it does for European Americans. In the context of African American naming traditions "uniqueness" means the same thing as "different". However, any survey of contemporary African American names will reveal a uniformity to these names.

Historically, more African American females than males had what mainstream American would consider to be 'unique' names. However, since at least the 1970s became part of the expression of pride in African nations receiving their indeindeppan expressionp0the number of African American males who have unique names appears to have increased since at leathe 1970s an increasing number of African American males}the "uniqueness" of a name is considered to be very important. Yet these unique names follow trends in names. A name is accepted and admired by African American people if that name obeys certain American and African American rules for the composition of names. These rules govern how long a name should be, whether the given name is male or female, which consonants or vowels should be used at the beginning and end of a male and/or female name, whether more than two consonant or vowel clusters should be used {the answer to that question is "no"}, what consonants and vowels can be used together, what prefixes the name should have if it is to be given to a male or female, what suffixes the given name should be if it is to be given to a male or a female, and what-if any-written "embellishments" should be given to a name {"embellishments" here means capitalizations of the first letter in the second syllable, and the use of an accent mark, or hyphen}.

It is my experience that African Americans {and other groups of people, I presume} have sound preferences for names. These sound preferences help to determine the popularity of personal names. Some of these sound preferences remain fairly constant over time, and some of the sound preferences change over time, becoming more popular, less popular, or not popular at all. Some of the likes & dislikes that African Americans have for sounds in names {and other words} adhere to the same preferences that non-African Americans have. But some of these preferences appear to be "unique" to African Americans.

For example, {for some reason or reasons} non-African Americans and African Americans don't like names or other words that begin with more than two consonants, or more than one vowel, or have more than three syllables, or begin with a "U" or end with a "u" or begin with an "X" or end with an "x". In addition to these dislikes, especially since the 1970s but also before that time {as evidenced by Elza Dinwiddie-Boyd's book "Proud Heritage, 11,001 Names For Your African-American Baby" {Avon Books, 1994},.for some reason or reasons many African Americans have a great fondness for names that begin with "Ch" or "Sh". This preference for "Ch" or "Sh" beginning is especially the case for female names. See for example the usually female names "Chante"{pronounced chah-TAY}, Shante {shah-TAY}, Chanice {chah-NEES} and Shanice {shah-NEES}. Not only do these currently popular names reflect African American preference for the "Cha" and "Sha" sounds but they also serve as examples for the popularity of the "tay" ending sound and the ees ending sound. Furthermore, note that these names adhere to the American preference for names that have two or three syllables. These names also adhere to the American rule that it is the second syllable in a name that is accentuated {meaning the last syllable in a two syllable name and the middle syllable in a three syllable name such as Azizi [ah-ZEE-zee}. By the way, for some reason or reasons African Americans tend to pronounce the vowel "a" differently than European Americans. Among African Americans an "a" is pronounced 'ah" {the same way it is pronounced in Spanish, Swahili, Arabic, Yoruba etc}. So, for instance, many African Americans pronounce the name "Yolanda" as yoh-LAHN-dah or yah-LAHN-dah while many European Americans pronounce that same name yoh-LAN-dah.

And when you see a young African American woman with a name tag "Sade" odds are that name is pronounced shah-DAY and that the woman is named after the vocalist "Sade" whose name is also pronounced that same way. For that singer "Sade" is a clip of her full first name Yoruba {Nigeria West Africa} female name Folasade and is pronounced foh-lah-SHAH-day [f] ola -meaning "honor or wealth" and [s] ade meaning crown {comes}- that name then literally means "the crown comes with honor or wealth". But few African American know this etymological information. Yet couldn't this knowledge help African woman named Ola {Ola Mae} or Sade {Sadie} feel good about themselves and about their African ancestry? I definitely believe so.

See this Name page of my website http://www.cocojams.com/names.htm for my ideas about the meaning of various contemporary "Cha" and "Sha" and other "different" personal names given to African Americans and/or to other people.