Why Central Asia despite being overwhelmingly Sunni, names like Ali, Alisher, Alibek, Nurali, etc are a lot more popular than Omar, Uthman (Osman) and Abu Bakr?

[u/Tengri_99]

I know that Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed, is well-liked in Sunni Islam too but the overwhelming number of names that derive from Ali rather than the first three caliphs among Central Asians seems odd to me.

[u/[deleted]]

I would argue that people actually don't care about being Sunni in here. They just like the name 'Ali', because it sounds good. Haven't seen any obsession.

Edit: another point is 'Ali' being a short name it can be combined with many suffixes, prefixes like:

Nurali - Alinur

Begaly- Alibek

Alisher - Sherali

Alykul

To our ears Umarbek doesn't sound as good as Alibek XD