I'm a deeply religious person, specifically
Christian, so I do think that tends to make me more interested in Biblical names. In fact, I stumbled onto Behind the Name in December 2004 specifically seeking out a list of Biblical names.
Biblical names encompass everything from uber-popular names like
Elizabeth or
Elijah or
Abigail or
John, to the more obscure ones that I'd never actually use (or want to see used, for that matter) -
Keren-Happuch or Melchizedek or
Habakkuk. I'm fascinated by the latter, but when it comes to names of actual usability, I definitely lean toward the former - though perhaps I do have a higher tolerance for names that are a bit less commonplace. (I really love the name
Matthias, for example.)
Because of my religious and ethnic backgrounds (white American
Christian cisgender man of European descent), I do think that there are names that I would avoid from other religious/cultural backgrounds. For example, I think names like
Chava or
Khadija are interesting and/or lovely, but I don't think I'd feel comfortable using them.
Andrew
put a smile on your face - make the world a better place (: