I find many of the “made up” names extremely musical and attractive. I’m not a big fan of apostrophes in names, but that’s my hang up.
I do get annoyed at cutesy spellings, substituting Y for I, or AY for A, but that doesn’t ever strike me as a racial thing. A guy at my workplace has two kids and both of them have “white” names with absurd spellings. It makes sense, though, since the guy’s wife is named “Windie.”
I think part of it is familiarity. If people heard the name Quanda as often as John, it wouldn’t be an issue. To take your example, I’ve known someone named Quan since I was a child. The name still seems odd to me, probably because you don’t hear “Qua” names that often around here.
Shouldn’t we be pleased when Cody or Detrell goes to college, then attempts to find lawful employment? Is this some sort of modern day equivalent to punishing people who are getting too uppity and trying to rise above their station in life? (Obviously, that isn’t going on in every case, but I wonder how much that element plays in this issue.)
“Makala” is a perfectly fine Hawaiian name, with a consistent Romanization and its own etymology and history. All it would convey about the hypothetical applicant’s family is that they respect their heritage.
“Mackayla” communicates the opposite - that the applicant’s progenitors either lack the ability to spell “Michaela,” or that they have no respect for the name’s history and meaning, and treat it as though it were no more than a sound on the air.
Nothing like having a few sins of our fathers visited upon us.
My parents were dirt poor when I was born, but Catholic so I got a saint’s name. Obviously, their faith also made them more successful later in life.
I’m betting if a person met an Asian guy named Quan, they wouldn’t dare think “What a horrible, ridiculous name!” And they wouldn’t blame him or his parents if his resume was tossed in the garbage. They’d say, “What a racist world we live in. Poor Quan.”
But if they met a black guy named Quan, suddenly it becomes a different situation.
I don’t know, but some of the sentiments expressed here are bothering me. It seems to me that people would be glad that black people have adopted many European names and made them popular in their community. The fact that these names aren’t found in the Top 1000 list seems to irk a lot of people. I don’t think I’ll really understand that.
Or maybe they care more about it being phonetic than looking “correct”.
Or are you are fan of Gwenhwyfar?
It seems people can’t win. If they give their child a nonphonetic name (like Leticia or the variant pronunciation of “Deborah”), they have to endure a lifetime of correcting people. If they spell the name phonetically, so that it is pronounced and spelled correctly most of the time, they are accused of not knowing the history and meaning of the name.
Caring about the history and meaning of the name is not a universal trait. People often choose names based on ancestors (your father’s name is Mustafa, as was his father’s, and so shall you be). Some people choose names simply because they are mainstream and safe (you can’t go wrong with “John”!) And others choose names because they like the way the name sounds “on the air”. Why should people esteem your naming tradition over anyone else’s?
I don’t know if this is supposed to be directed at me, since I said Quan sounds odd to me, but I’m in favor of interviewing both Quans.
If most people who’d toss Roshanda’s resume and keep Rochelle’s resume, wouldn’t also toss Rochelle’s resume after they got to Rebecca’s, I’d be very surprised. Saying that you’re trying to keep the “trash” out is more acceptable in 2008 than saying you’re trying to keep ___ race out. If the majority of the black people’s resumes happen to get thrown out, well that’s just unfortunate, but wasn’t intentional. :rolleyes:
Oh, I know. I’m just ventin’. 
To balance it out, I think there should be businesses that reject applicants who have names on the Top 100 list. What’s their crime? Having parents who are too trendy and uncreative. I mean, what kind of worker would a “John Smith” be? No good, that’s what.
I’m sure that Keisha will be considered a normal name in far less than 1,000 years, but it’s difficult for the truly unique recently “made up” names to become traditional if they’re not just uncommon, but actually one-of-a-kind. Someone linked to this article in the other thread about black names,
Sorry, meant to post under burundi
Some names that connote “middle class black” to me: Anita, Antoinette, Denise, Jacqueline, Jocelyn, Monica, Monique, Rachelle, Sherilyn, Tasha, Tonya, Yvette, Yvonne. For younger girls, Kaila and Jasmine. Obviously, there are plenty of white women with these names, too, but, in my experience, Denise is a lot more likely to be African-American than Allison or Julie.
A white woman I know named Sharon Johnson used to work for WIC. She said that over the phone, black clients would often assume that she was also black, based on her name. Sharon Johnson doesn’t seem particularly African-American to me, but she said it happened fairly often.
It’s harder for me to think of male names that seem both black and middle class, but Julian, Jerome, and Xavier all spring to mind.
In a more general vein, I work at a big fat hippie college, so it’s not uncommon for me to encounter students with names like Sage or Rain. One poor girl I knew was named Galadriel Guinevere. (She went by Wendy.) It’s not fair on my part, but I have to make a conscious effort not to assume that these students are more disorganized or have lower GPAs than students named Claire or Thomas.
Now I want to have a kid and name her Demonica. Thanks, Monstro.
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There are a lot of people named “Ajay” who have done rather well for themselves.
It’s not quite to John Smith, but I’m a Julie Carter.
Hearing my name puts people in a coma.
Kinda not the greatest worker, either.
Seems to me you’re perpetuating a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you and everyone else reject the “Ajays” in your resume pile, they remain unemployed and confirm to the world that they just aren’t any good.
I dunno. Julie Carter sounds like a thug gangsta name to me.
I’m a fan of two wonderful old fashioned, historic names you cannot possibly name a child and expect them to survive third grade, Dalmatia and Dorcas.
It is a real name. I’ve personally known two,
My father’s a 3rd and had I been born male, I would have been the 4th. (Thank god I wasn’t!) My father isn’t stuffy, nor does he have a sense of entitlement.
I work with a 3rd. He has multiple piercings and plays base for a death metal band. Hardly the stuffy rich kid type.