I got a pissed-off reading this thread because there were a couple of posters who seemed to be advocating name discrimination. I’m sure the same posters would rail against gender or racial discrimination, but they seemed to think it was fine and dandy to select against people bearing certain names.
My problem is that names are not chosen. Just like skin color and nationality, you’re born into it. Yes, you can legally change it, but you can legally change lots of things about your identity. That doesn’t mean should have to do it.
Names are also associated with ethnicity/nationality, culture, and socioeconomics. If it’s alright to discriminate against names that are correlated with stigmitized groups, then aren’t you in essense discriminating against members of those stigmitized groups?
But apart from discrimination of protected groups, it just doesn’t seem like a very nice thing to do. Names are a very personal thing and represent one’s identity. I know someone who didn’t like her name as a child and eventually came to accept it and even like it as she matured. Rejecting her name is like rejecting her.
That said, I think parents should choose names that are meaningful, easy to pronounce and spell, and pleasant on the ears. But if I met someone who didn’t have a name like this, I wouldn’t think anything bad about that person. And if I did, I’d feel ashamed of myself.
I haven’t read the other thread, but I think I engage in a bit of name discrimination, if that’s what you’d like to call it. For example, I’ve known a few Ashleys who were slutty bitches so I tend to view most Ashleys that way until they prove me wrong. Not that I’ll shun a girl named Ashley, but my bad experiences with Ashleys in the past make me a bit wary.
Other than that, I don’t think much of names unless they’re abrasive or unfortunate. There was a girl in my high school named Tequila, and I always felt bad for her. Or people with old-fashioned names that haven’t been out of style long enough to be cute again so you have a hot guy named Herbert or something.
Name discrimination on racial or ethnic grounds is racism. But I’ll admit that I do discriminate based on names by personal experience. For example, I’ve known five or six Joshes in my life and haven’t even vaguely liked a one of them. Now, I hear that someone’s name is Josh and I’m immediately thinking “Oh. That’s how it’s going to be.” Silly, maybe, but it’s reflexive now.
I have to admit that I engage in name discrimination, internally at least. I mean, if someone offers to set me up with David or Mergatroyd, I think my first thought is going to be that Mergatroyd is not someone I want to have babies with.
But then I’d give it another second and think he could have had nutty parents and that I should at least meet both of them. Plus, there are plenty of disgusting slobs named “David.”
I’d never not interview someone because of his name, nor assume that T’Shawn comes from a broken home and has less education, nor that people from broken homes with uneducated parents are going to be worse workers. I know for a fact that’s not only not “always” true. IME it’s not even usually true.
I agree that name discrimination is pretty dumb. I know in the past I’ve chuckled over what I think is a very unfortunate name … but one of the things I’ve learned in my years on the SDMB is that in the threads about terrible names, there are plenty of names mentioned that I think are perfectly fine, and I’ve been uncomfortable when the disdain seems to bleed over from the individual name (because really, there are going to be some names that sound unpleasant to your ear) to names associated with group identities. I find it a little hard to believe that every single name associated with a group is going to sound equally unattractive, and when I hear someone list such names, I start to suspect that maybe the issue is more with the group than the names. (And having learned a lesson about myself, I avoid those threads now.)
It completely pisses me off everytime these threads start because it’s pretty much applied soley to blacks of a certain economic class. No one ever suggest that foreign born parents shouldn’t give their kids traditional names like Ya-Ping or Chancahi or Guon or Obama. (in fact, most people fall all over themselves to look enightened and always mention how “pretty” the foreign names are) It’s only the names that a certain African-American CULTURE chooses that make everyone go on and on about how they’re starting their kids out with a disadvantage and how can they be so foolish as to not choose traditional Anglo-Saxon names. :rolleyes:
I agree with Delphica. I’ve also seen people making fun of “made up” names that are in fact Arabic names that have been adopted by American blacks. I’d bet learning that those names are quite old wouldn’t change their feelings one bit.
I read the OP of that thread and I thought “are you kidding?”. It wasn’t the most intelligent of questions - I’m not surprised that it got “not the most intelligent of answers”.
It took the edge off of my “WTF” when I saw the bit about the name Anastasia - that made the OP seem naive (I won’t quite go as far as “uneducated”).
To answer your question, Monstro, I don’t think badly of a person with a whack-o name. I went to school with a dude named “Merry Christmas” - like you said, he didn’t pick that name, his mom did. His being named that had zero to do with who he was. And I have heard of a lot of names similar to the ones given in the linked thread - it’s common here where I live. What does it matter if they have no “origin”? They’re just names. Grow up already, people.
I’d like to highlight certain parts of that quote:
and
The point I’m trying to make here is that you’re exactly right: one’s name isn’t one’s identity, though it may represent it, and that while rejecting someone’s name is like rejecting them, it isn’t. Almost everyone is sensitive about something about themselves and will lose perspective when that button gets pushed. Some people blame everything that goes wrong in their life on their race (or rather, on everyone else’s racism) or their looks (or rather, on everyone else’s obsession with physical beauty) or any number of things. Neurotics come in all degrees and with all kinds of triggers.
If I hesitated to take someone seriously because of their name, it would have nothing to do with their race. It would have to do with me trying to decide how seriously I wanted to take someone whose parents thought Shi’Tonya* was a great name for a person. For the record, I’d have the same reservations about a child name Adolf or Charlemagne or Banana. People who are named (and presumably raised) by nutjobs have, in my experience, a pretty high chance of being nutjobs themselves.
*Actual name, taken from the case files of children who signed up for library cards long ago.
Definitely not OK when it comes to hiring, admissions, lending, housing, etc.
On a personal level, it’s kind of a reflex. I will admit to having an irrational disdain for Britney Spears long before it was popular based solely on her first name. I also shudder just a little every time I see a Jesyka or a Keath. I don’t want to live in a world where everyone has to go around spelling out their first names because some parents can’t follow convention. That said, I will make an effort not to hold people’s name against them, unless I find out that they’ve changed them in a misguided effort to be more distinctive, in which case I reserve the right to shun them like the high-maintenance attention-seekers they are.
tremorviolet, you’re comparing traditional names to made-up names. And a lot of us white folk don’t have Anglo-Saxon names either. Not that I think making up names is a terrible thing to do, but I do wish people would take ease of spelling into account.
So what? Where did “traditional” names came originally anyway? They were all made up at some point in time. (and most of us don’t even know enough about other cultures to know if the names really are traditional or just made up) And in that particular African-American culture, having a unique, “made-up” name is traditional. If La’queesha’s mom had named her “Susan”, she would have been considered the weird one in her neighborhood and subjected to mocking. And the spelling thing is easy, just ask them. I didn’t know Parsarn (A Thai name) is pronounce “Fie-sahn” until I heard it pronounced but I learned.
We got over the juvenile trait of mocking foreigners for their “weird” names. Take the next step and get over this racism remnant.
I wouldn’t name my own child something that allowed for easy discrimination based on looking at their name on a resume. That strikes me as stupid. Regardless of how much it shouldn’t be the case that LeShawn shouldn’t be discriminated against simply for being named LeShawn, the world isn’t a perfect place and why burden your kids with a name that has associations.
Just like the “do you know anyone named Lolita” thread. I like the name Lolita - but I wouldn’t name my daughter that.
I can’t imagine discriminating against someone because they had one of those obvious black names, since that is basically discriminating against black people.
On the other hand, when I meet a grown up woman who tells me her name is Candy, I immediately assume she’s a bimbo.
I have a generally negative reaction to a lot of ‘-ee’ ending names in adults. Not so much Jacqui and Judy and even Cathy–whether that’s because those are names in my family or because they seem like names in and of themselves, as opposed to ‘Krissy’ and ‘Katie’ which seem like such obvious diminutives of much nicer names.
Agreed.
I wanted to name my son Christopher and call him Kit, but my husband very kindly pointed out that most people would think of a cheesy, talking car from the 80’s rather than an icon of English Literature. We chose a different name, and all because of a very mild, innocuous association. We put A LOT of thought into the way names can be twisted by others for less than friendly purposes. With that thought in mind, I can’t understand how names like Shi’Tonya, Trashonda, or Generica* make it past the parental radar as a good idea.
I think name discrimination is wrong when it comes to housing, employment, education, etc. I know firsthand (from giving diagnostic tests in Kindergarten and First grade) that name has no bearing on score. Ta’Shawn may score as well or higher than Thomas. Shanethia may likely be more reading ready than Susan. I do think that the unusual names may be an unnecessary burden for them in the future.
*the first name supplied by another poster in another thread (can’t remember where), and the last two names have been on the enrollment at a local school.
It might shock you to learn this, but some people simply like “Leshawn”. They aren’t thinking of racists or bigots when they pick out names, not anymore than a Jewish couple is when they pick “Moshe” or a rich WASP couple is when they pick “Jefferson”.
A very close person to me has an unusual first name and has “Leshawn” as their middle name. You might assume such a person is uneducated, poor, inarticulate, and welfare-leeching, but they’re actually a doctor, making a considerable amount of money, and is doing quite well for herself all around. It angers me that people think she’s pitiable simply because her name is too “black”, as if blackness is a bad thing to be. It actually angers me a lot.
I agree. Just like anything that makes a first impression, you can’t really help the feelings. But most people don’t try to justify their prejudice in the way the posters were doing in the linked thread. I think that’s why I got so upset.
Not only are many Arabic, but many also have European origins. “Latisha” is just a more phonetic spelling of “Leticia”, a Spanish name. “Antwone” is “Antoine”, a French name. Growing up, I knew two Dariuses, a lot of Marcuses, and a number of Lawandas (which is just a version of the Swedish “Wanda”). There’s no reason why blacks should be any more villified for picking these names than whites should be for going overboard with “Jennifer”, “Amy”, and “Michael”.
I wholeheartedly agree. People even go so far as to blame those names on the reason why blacks are discriminated against, seemingly ignoring that blacks have been discriminated against for much than longer than “Laquesha” has been popular.
It might surprise some folks that some of that African American names are being adopted by non-blacks. I know I was surprised to learn that the star of the movie The Whale Rider is a New Zealander named Keisha.
The reason I brought up traditional vs. made-up names is because you implied that racism was the reason some people mocked some names and not others, and I feel that’s not the only reason. People may feel that to mock a name they perceive as traditional is to mock an entire culture, whereas to mock a name coined by the parents is to mock an individual’s behavior. I didn’t say it was right to do so. If you insist that racism is the only explanation, I don’t expect to convince you otherwise, but I’m not going to agree with you.
If you’ll reread what I wrote, you’ll see that I didn’t say people should only use traditional names. (I’m not putting that in quotes because I mean it literally.) As for spelling, all I’m SUGGESTING is if you give a child a traditional name, stick to the traditional spelling (obviously some names have variants, but they usually aren’t that complicated - e.g., "that’s Elisabeth with an “s”). If you’re coining a brand-new name, why not avoid silent lettters and unnecessary diacritical marks that are going to complicate interpersonal interactions for the rest of the child’s life? And in case it’s not blindingly obvious, my suggestions about standardized spelling are SUGGESTIONS. I have neither the power nor the desire to compel parents to name their children anything other than what they want to.
I also did not mock any foreigners for their weird names.* The examples I used were those of (as far as I know) native-born Americans. And since you implied that my post was racist, you should realize that of the three specific examples I gave, one person is white, another is Asian, and another is someone whose ethnicity I don’t know.
Although I don’t like to reveal too much of my personal life on these boards, perhaps I should disclose here that I have a young relative named after a character from Forgotten Realms, and I’m none too pleased, despite the fact that he’s a fair-skinned, blue-eyed blond.
As far as I can remember, I have mocked a foreigner’s name exactly once. It was in fourth, fifth, or sixth grade, and his name was Gunnar, and I still feel bad about it.
