> For instance, a parent might anticipate the name “Kate” would be a pleasantly traditional yet unique name with only moderate popularity. They would be wrong [6].
Reference 6 is the paper.
> Simon Shindler contributed significantly to the aesthetic of Figure 7, but could not be named an author for obvious reasons.
What are these "obvious reasons"?
/^[KC]at(h?ie|e|h?y|h?erine)$/https://nameberry.com/list/16/catherinekatherines-internatio...
vowel 0: E, Ye, Je, Ai. Optional and rare; Ai in particular is very rare.
consonant 1: C, K, G, Q. Mandatory; G and Q are rare.
vowel 1: a, aa, ai; optional h or gh. Mandatory. A few shortened forms use i instead.
consonant 2: t, tt, d. Almost mandatory, but a few r-centric variants lack it. There also seem to be a few
vowel 2: a, e. Optional, only valid if consonant 2 exists. In shortened forms, also i, ie, or y; this is the end.
consonant 3: r, l. Optional. Sometimes L starts a new word instead.
vowel 3: i, y, ee, ie, ii, e if no consonant 2, plus several rare vowel sequences. Almost mandatory (assuming consonant 3), but a few rare variants pack the r right next to the n.
consonant 4: n, nn, nh. Optional.
vowel 4: e, a, ey. Optional; ey is rare.
Some languages shove an s, c, x, t, k somewhere too (some of these are probably language-specific diminutives, but a few might be phoneme drift instead) ...
"Kaylee" and its variant "Kayla" should probably not be counted (despite almost fitting the pattern) since that's a compound of "Kay", adding the additional "Leigh" name.
I understand that many people from east asia have a given name in their native language and an english sounding name that they often choose themselves.
If those three authors did chose their english names, then they too fall into the same category of parents who chose a variation of Katherine.
I’ve also met some folks who had English names that phonetically sounded similar to their original names. I wonder if there’s an east Asian first name that sounds like any of the versions of Katherine.
English people choosing English baby names often want them to be relatively unique or stand out in some way. At the very least, they don't want them to be _overly_ common.
Manny people I've talked to that have chosen a name after immigrating are kind of aiming for the opposite. They want to fit in. They already feel that they stand out, and generally try and minimize that.
There's also the fact that for some groups, they're choosing the name at a time when they may not be very familiar with English names or culture, and may not have much in the way of local resources they can or feel comfortable with drawing on, so the main indication they have that they haven't chosen some absurd name is "hey, lots of people here are named that".