See this is literally a non issue, to date. I've worked in smaller companies that had multiple non related persons who had either the same last or the same first name. Hell I've worked with a 12 person crew where that has happened for a last name. It happens. Hell my first semester at college, when registering for classes I kept getting blocked for some based on what they showed as my previous academic record. I was going what the fucking hell. Went to the registrars offices and discovered two files got mixed up. Both belonging to a Mark Steven Wood. I was a Freshmen at a college two thousands miles away from my home state and there was also another Freshmen with literally the same name, from the same state and both of us coming from a town starting with the same letter. And per records there were 15 people from my state at the school (5 of them from my high school and in the same program). So what's the odds of that. Now its very likely that someone used the name as a homage to the reoccurring actor from TOS. But that is very likely all it will ever be. Hell they might even want it to be that character, but its still exceedingly likely to be utter irrelevant. I mean do we know anything about Kyle from TOS? I mean sure we saw him performing several function on the Enterprise (though his largest was manning the transporter), and we know he served on the Reliant (if we assume its the same character, technically we don't even know that) as a communications officer. But we don't have a first name, we have no knowledge of any likes or personality traits. For us the viewer to say this character is supposed to be the same character based on onscreen evidence, then we need to see a future version of this younger character interacting in Kirk's enterprise and referencing an event that occur by that version of Kyle. Without that, people who are complain are utterly irrational. With complaints that lack any merit.
His ethnicity is far less important than his English accent. A line must be drawn in the sand. This far and no further. For the unknown alien yeoman, the issue for me is that she doesn't appear to be a canon alien species. Either use one of the existing ones (not Betazoids - even I have standards) or give me a human. The Aenar is fine.
All we really know about Kyle was that he was blond, had a British accent, was the transporter operator during TOS; and was promoted to Commander and stationed aboard the USS Reliant during Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Why? Gotta be more aliens in the UFP and the fleet that were seen on the show(s). What's the problem with Betazoids? Do you not like the species?
The UFP during TOS was smaller but tbh, I want them to develop existing species not set the makeup department on a mission. Betazoids were just diluted Deltans with all the interesting parts removed. Babylon 5, Sapphire and Steel, Blakes 7, Is There Truth in No Beauty, hell, even True Blood, did telepaths in a more interesting way.
Maybe Asian Kyle married White Kyle and they are husbands and Asian Kyle took White Kyle's last name because they believe in that old fashioned marriage ritual. The twist is both or them lost their parents when they were young and where adopted by Sarek and Amanda and grew up being siblings with Spock,Burnham and Sybok.
The bench is pretty shallow for that era when it comes established aliens. Few come to mind as ones I'd like to see explored.
Are those the ones with the bulbous foreheads and breathing apparatus ? Never mind. I googled. Why do I know this?????
I thought the online sources identified the character as "Chief Kyle" and not "Lieutenant." And as an Asian-American I always noticed the Asian transporter assistant in "The Cage," the one and only person of color in the entire episode, a minor blink-and-you-miss-it role with absolutely no speaking lines. And I would like to think that this is the same guy, now promoted to Chief and finally given some development and some important things to do (and say) after 58 years. Kor