What! No sports figures!!
Yup! Ditto here in Albany. Fortunately for the group of 'confirmandi' that I taught, I would accept nothing less than a saint's name. Recognizing that they wanted to pick something unusual or different, I gave them a web site link to every saint that had ever been canonized, even enticing them with saintly tidbits like "there is one saint who was tossed into an oven and emerged unscathed". Today's teens thrive on the bizarre and they bit. Several chose arcane saints from the 1st and 2nd centuries. That was a real "win/win" situation since these forgotten saints had gained sudden fame :-). Ironically the pastor's nephew was in another group and the kid refused to pick a saint's name; he chose his mother's maiden name. Well, as fate would have it, in looking up that name, I actually found a saint and immediately called the pastor with the good news. He was delighted but we agreed not to mention a word to the nephew for fear he might change it again. God acts in strange ways.
Remember livius, the 'onus' is on the teacher and the child's parents to set the guidelines, not the bishop. There are too few parishioners willing to commit to teaching CCD. In a liberal diocese like Albany, the need for more 'devout' parishioners to get involved is tantamount. Otherwise, you end up pointing fingers of blame at others.
Always begin with yourself. Not happy with the way things are going? Jump in and change them. It's not easy but "we" are the church and only "we" can change it. Remember, if I had not agreed to teach that Confirmation class, the parish would now have liturgical dancers - the 'confirmandi'! The one year I was asked to teach, is the same year that the pastor sent his DRE into the Confirmation classrooms looking for volunteers to perform liturgical dance. The priest thought he could pull the wool over the eyes of these volunteers; he never factored me into the mix and could not anticipate that I would take this to the level of the diocese. No liturgical dance!
Boy, that's the truth! When I taught 9th grade RE (not Confirmation ... that was 11th grade in Oklahoma), I told the students about the early Ecumenical Councils, the fights betweeen Gnostics, Arians, Montanists, etc. The point was that the elements of the Creed are so important that people were dying over them (and I think they got it) but they really got into the idea of mobs in the streets howling, "Dig up his bones!"
My daughter has Confirmation this year, and plans to take the name "Peter." (I wonder if anyone will try to talk her out of it?) Her baptismal names are Josephine Victoria Clare; I suppose that was enough feminine frou-frou for life!