zogt – i was so impressed by your post above but now you are joining the fray as well. any hard data on the names? The communities vary so greatly it would be silly to make claims about what “the MO” are doing.
And technically, while i dont advocate for using names like sam, i don’t advocate for yiddish names either. according to R Krohn (and others) in his book about naming a child, yiddish is secular. those who named their kids Izik veered from Torah names and many did it to assimilate more guiltlessly. the only reason you think those names arent secular is because you don’t live in europe.