1. Mao Mao's name is the best name ever. You can't go wrong when you give someone like her a cat-themed name.
2. Her interests show pretty heavily. How to teach someone how to read? Start with their name, then... names of medicinal plants. Right. Given that their written language is kanji-based, it wouldn't even help recognizing more common words by deciphering them as you can with an alphabet-based language.