Hoho? 
But Candy? That’s not an unusual English name at all. Short for Candace.
What I have noticed is that when not going for bizarre names, Taiwanese women (and girls) almost invariably choose ‘stripper’ names.
Among the first local women I ever met were named Fifi, CoCo and Lolita!
Colleagues in my department:
- Mimian: was this supposed to be ‘Miriam’?
- Oreo: like the cookie
- Alomar: this is a Spanish name which would probably be appropriate in Spain
- Pofen: sounds like a word a pharmaceutical company would coin (‘Now with 5mg of Pofen!’)
- Bjone: someone doesn’t know how to spell ‘Bjorn’, but if you’re a standard five and a half foot dark skinned black haired brown eyed Taiwanese, why call yourself ‘Bjorn’ anyway?
- Kofi: a clever way to name yourself after your favourite beverage
- Buno: I hope this was supposed to be ‘Bruno’, if not I don’t know what it’s supposed to be
- Saint: a name to live up to
Of course we have the usual collection of popular girly names, such as Kitty, Winnie, Ivy (at least two), Iris (at least two), Flora, Wendy (at least two), as well as the more rare solid and down to earth girls names, some of which sound startlingly Australian (Charlene, Doris, Doreen, and Shirley). Then there’s ‘Docars’, who was trying for ‘Dorcas’ (a name in the New Testament), and managed instead to hit on the name of an automobile sales and maintenance company in the Netherlands.
that’s what i wanna say
I have a female colleague who named herself “Pi-Pi”.
I’m now waiting for one of the others to call herself “Poo-Poo”.
Pi-Pi and Poo-Poo.
Hao ke ai!
I had a “Shalom” yesterday. That’s bizarre simply for its obscurity. I didn’t know there were any Jewish Taiwanese people.
I had a friend who told me againd and again that her name was Grace. Beautiful name. One day she became visibly frustraited with me and wrote the name down. “G R A S S.” “Grace,” she said as she spelled it out on paper for me, “my name is ‘Grace’!” She was trying to get me to call her “Grass.” When SHE said Grace it sounded like Grass to her, I guess.
Well if SHE can’t pronounce her own name, how should I? But it turns out her English name was a direct translation of her Chinese name and she’d had a tough time comming to girpps with people laughing at her as a girl and asking why her parents named her Grass and not Flower. Her father told her her name was special because when a flower is cut down, it dies, but grass can be cut again and again and it will just grow faster and taller each time.
This woman was an English teacher.
I know an Abraham and several Josephs.
i used to work with a guy named flanker. i thought that was cool since obviously he’s named after a street fighter 2 character.
then i met a girl named chung-li.
My first landlord here was called Fishman.I politely asked him why he had chosen that unusual name.He told me that he grew up in Keelong among lots of fishermen and thought the name was appropriate.I suggested that Fisherman might be a better fit,to which he responded that three of his senior high school classmates were called Fisherman 
housecat: Yes, the inability to pronounce many of the long vowel sounds is frustrating, especially when applied to names.
In a similar vein, way back in the day, before I knew better, I was teaching kindergarten. I had a new student, and my co-teacher asked me to suggest some names for her. So, I trotted out some pretty standard English names like Kate and Sarah (I was sick of the S___y and C___y brigade). The next day, my co-teacher said they had named her Shine, but she was insisting that it be pronounced as Shiny. I tried to explain to her how Shine would be pronounced, both by the “rules” of spelling and also because of how virtually every foreigner would pronounce it. This kind of thing really shits me beyond belief because they deliberately fuck up the language and then make it like you’re the person getting it wrong. It’s like Joan constantly being pronounced as Joanne, instead of rhyming with loan. It does my head in.
I know an Abraham and several Josephs.[/quote]
Of course, and David, Anna (from Hannah) and many other Jewish names are common enough that they’ve been co-opted by non-Jewish people. Shalom is pretty Jewish though.
Yeah, Shalom is pretty Jewish, but I don’t know any non-Jewish people anywhere else who are called ‘Abraham’. I have named one girl ‘Hannah’, and another ‘Sarah’. I think they’re great names for girls. I still haven’t found any girls willing to try out ‘Hadassah’, another Jewish favourite of mine.
Except maybe for Abraham Lincoln…
My dad, like Mr. Sharon, is an Ariel. I still think it’s weird when I meet female Ariels.
My schoolpal’s name was Ariel. Sister’s Portia. (You can’t choose yer parents…) And Ariel’s the name of the mermaid in the Disney film, in case you were think your kids had Shakespearean pretentions.
Off-topic, but there used to be a kindy near where I lived called ‘The Disnae School’, windows covered in pics of Dumbo. Made this demi-Scot laugh.
Except maybe for Abraham Lincoln…[/quote]
No, I don’t know him. There might be many non-Jewish people out there called ‘Abraham’, but I don’t know them. For the record, ‘Ariel’ is a Hebrew name meaning ‘lion of God’. Not exactly a name for a mermaid, and not particularly feminine. I’m also fairly certain the Israeli Defense Force has some weapon or vehicle or something called ‘Ariel’.
Except maybe for Abraham Lincoln…[/quote]
No, I don’t know him. There might be many non-Jewish people out there called ‘Abraham’, but I don’t know them. For the record, ‘Ariel’ is a Hebrew name meaning ‘lion of God’. Not exactly a name for a mermaid, and not particularly feminine. I’m also fairly certain the Israeli Defense Force has some weapon or vehicle or something called ‘Ariel’.[/quote]
Sure, I had a quick looky at Wikipedia. I’m just pointing out that it came to the non-Jewish female populace via The Tempest.
Talking of Jews and Shakespeare, I have yet to encounter anyone going by the name of Shylock.
He was a horrible character. Ariel, although also fairly dubious in her/his treatment of Caliban, was a fairy.