One girl of Vietnamese descent (I think she was first-generation American) said she chose her name because Americans couldn’t pronounce her given name, ‘Houng’. She chose ‘Helen’ because it sounded kind of similar.
Another coworker (who was born in Vietnam) kept her name, ‘My’ (with some sort of accent over the ‘y’). But she went by the English pronunciation so her given name and surname sounded like a tropical drink.
The Mandarin teachers at my kids’ school assign Chinese names to all their students too - and they take the process quite seriously. The kids get a Chinese-style family name, which is kinda like their English family name but not quite, siblings all get a generation-name just like Chinese siblings would, and parents can have input into the process too. It’s quite clear that the teachers are expecting that, if the kids keep on with their studies, their Chinese name will be with them for a long time, possibly for life.
Korean family name.
Yes. When my group or Oregonians went to Beijing for a study abroad program, our resident adviser gave us the Chinese names we would use there. The names have to be something the Chinese would recognize as a name. I still use mine when I’m around Chinese people. Same in Japan. I was working for the Ministry of Education in Japan, so I needed an official chop, so I could stamp my name on legal documents and such.
You don’t have to pick a phonetic rendition of your name. I have three versions of my name, and all are typical, three-character names. My immigration name was chosen for me, and I have an old version and current version for the Chinese side of my calling cards that I picked (with consultation, thank goodness!).
Some transliterations may be nonsense for names, i.e., a Chinese might not recognize them as names, but it’s not really “non-sensical” to them, after all there are hundreds of brands that do the same thing, and Chinese are good at recognizing the difference. “福特” (Fute) sounds roughly phonetic, its meaning is nonsense, but everyone recognizes it for what it is.
That kind of goes for regular words, too, though. No one thinks to himself that he’s talking about “gate mouths” (doorway, etc.), and more than we are talking about “self moving” when we use the word “automobile.”
I’m sure you have enough exposure to some of the less-typical-for-us names that Chinese often pick for themselves! We should compare notes. 
I dunno, except for Alice, my 9 year old daughter here in the states has friends with all those names, and there are multiples of all but Olivia. You can’t shake a stick around her school without whacking an Emily or an Ava. The place is lousy with 'em.
Yeah, that’s what I mean. There’s not really such a thing as “old-fashioned” when it comes to names - the old ones keep bobbing back up like corks. It’s just a case of “where in the cycle are you?”. Today’s “old fashioned” is next decade’s “ahead of the curve”
Any bets on a big crop of little Charlotte Elizabeths starting school in five years time?
Pre-birth, already 17th and 31st in the UK:
I know a guy from Singapore named Lester. His parents gave him that name in hopes that he would be the first of their family to be educated and live in the U.S., which came to pass. They thought “Lester” would allow him to blend right in.
It might be Filipino-American thing, but not necessarily a Filipino thing, as Wendy, Kimberly, and Tammy (the first three names listed in the OP) are decidedly unusual names in the Philippines itself. Of the other names listed in the OP, Sharon and Cheryl are still popular and Elaine, while less common, isn’t too unusual.
For historical reasons, Spanish names remain common, though I’ll note that the names popular here are different than the names in Latin America or Spain. More recently, American names have become popular, again for historical reasons.
ETA: As noted, the American names popular in the Philippines don’t necessarily conform to the names popular in the US.
My sample size is small but I know about 10 Filipinos straight from the Philippines. Some of them have Spanish-sounding names, but none of them is an actual Spanish name I’ve ever heard. There’s a smatter of names that I guess are pure Filipino, and a “Jerry.”
Surnames, though, are predominantly Spanish-sounding, and most of them are recognizable, common Spanish surnames (e.g., Vallez).
Socio-economically speaking they’re all college graduate engineers and decidedly middle-class. I imagine there are class distinctions in the Philippines.
One other thing Filipinos love is nicknames. Witness these names of the current and past few presidents:
Corazon “Cory” Aquino
Fidel Ramos
Joseph “Erap” Estrada
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Benigno “Noy-noy” Aquino III [the incumbent]
Three out of five have a nickname by which they are commonly known. Some of these are obviously derived from the given legal name. Others are a whole other unofficial monniker. One recent senator was named “Joker” Arroyo (no relation to Gloria); I can’t even tell you what his legal name is.
Vallez is not a Spanish surname, or at least, not one that’s normally spelled. It looks like a hypercorrection of Vallés or Valles, by someone who thought it was a patronymic (neither one is a patronimic, one means “from the valley” and the other one means “valleys”). Just for curiosity’s sake, what would the “Spanish sounding but not actually Spanish” names be?
I’m going to guess that was supposed to be “Valdez”, a common apellido all over the Hispanosphere including the Philippines.
Spanish-language, not Spanish-from-Spain. “Vallez” with that spelling is very, very common in the Americas.
An example “Spanish-sounding” name might be “Arnulfo.”
Arnulfo is a perfectly cromulet Spanish name.
I got curious and went a-googlin’. It seems Wendy Valdez is a local actress who has appeared on several TV shows. So I’m probably wrong about the recent popularity of the name “Wendy” in the Philippines. Couldn’t find anyone named “Kimberly” or “Tammy”, although there is a Hotel Kimberly.
For what it’s worth, I know two Chinese Eunices. Alan and Henry also seem to pop up a lot.
Beat me to it. When we in the west see names like Kim Jong-il, Kim Il-sung, etc., we assume that Kim is the first name, because that’s the western convention.
Damn OP you think these are bad? Have you heard about Mary, Linda? These are the real cringe-worthy ones.
The reason is most newly-immigrated Asian Americans, especially the Chinese, don’t know shit about western culture.
When I had English in elementary school back in Asia, we had these western females named as Linda and Mary and obviously those who had been taught these lessons when they were young students, grown up thinking these old-fashioned, horrible names are the “norms”.
Simply put, they are different culture, and just plain stupid probably.