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Most names used here (Israel) by secular families are either word names, or Biblical names whose meaning is obvious because they are composed of common words. There are plenty of nature names, or names meaning things like "my light" or "my song" or "you are mine" or "pleasantness". From my experience, the ones you notice like you described are usually the rarer or made-up names.

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So yeah, meaning names are very, very big here ("I named my daughter Gift because she is one to me") and sometimes that is what helps them grow on me (like the aforementioned Gift - Matan is a boy's name! or things like Liat - I don't like the sound much, but when you break it into words it is suddenly lovely). When you think of most names here, you can tell how much the parents loved their child.

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On the other side of the coin, there is the story of the girl named "Disappointment" (Achzava), I think because her parents wanted a boy. Ugh. Stupid parents.