What's in a name?

Most everyone knows I go by Sally while I'm in Gambia.  Its nice to have a Gambian name partly because, with a Gambian name, you know people you meet will be able to pronounce it.  But probably the best part of having a Gambian name is the "toma effect."  A toma is someone that shares the same name as you.  Meeting a toma is great.  Its an instant guarantee of friendship and your tomaship will probably be announced to everyone around.  In America, I feel like being in a group with several people with the same name its a little annoying, but here they love it.  There's a standard bank of names that most people use, so I'd guess that at least 75% of the country is named names from the top maybe 25 names.  (And I feel like that's a conservative estimate.)  Most of the standard names are Muslim names: Modoulamin, Muhammed, Ebrima, Fatoumatta, Mariamma, Isatou... These, and nicknames that derive from them, account for tons of the population. 
One of my favorite conversations with a middle school boy at school was about names, and he said all boys should just be named Lamin (a shortenig of Modoulamin). It's the best name because so many people have it, and if all the people named Lamin decided to fight everyone else they would win, no doubt.  Sounds like logic is on his side. 
In my village, its no exception to the name situation in the rest of the country.
- A full 10% of my village's population (not women, total population) is named Fatou Badjie.
- My host father has 6 sons, 2 of them are named Ebrima.  
- My host father had 4 wives- 2 of them have exactly the same name.
- The oldest son in every family in my village is named Modoulamin.
Its just crazy that this much name overlap is unheard of in America but is so common here.  So common that I'm the only one around who finds it confusing.