Easy enough to change the names if they bug anyone. I'll change them if I feel a name's too repetitive, like I ended up with 3 Aichas, so I'll look up another first name on the Internet that suits the culture. And you can always make your own Sims or download from the Gallery to help the balance.
My main family adopted a boy with Indian heritage -- the game named him Jeremiah but I changed it to Sumit which means "good friend" but he ended up with a Mean Streak as a teen and fought with his brother Edgar (adopted as a baby and turned out to be black; Afri-Sim?) and they ended up disliking each other. (He went through a lot of phases so he obviously had some issues.)
My unpopular opinion is that I really don't miss the open world of Sims 3; I prefer the loading screens to watching a taxi or car drive down the road, then stop and the Sim ends up running up a hill to get to his/her ultimate destination. Or watching a building while my Sims are inside eating or working or going to school. I wouldn't mind the neighborhoods being more open so you can visit the neighbors without a loading screen though.