[Buford ‘Mad Dog’ Tannen] What kinda stupid name is that? [/BMDT]
I knew a girl named Domenica (emphasis on first syllable). I think it’s a pretty name. But I can easily imagine someone wanting to spell it as “Demonica” if they didn’t think about it hard enough.
I used to know a young lady named Evilese, but I can’t remember exactly how she spelled it.
Personally, my thinking about names as predictors of one’s success in life has been changed by having a woman named Condoleezza as US Secretary of State. If ever there was a name that should have doomed a woman to life as a stripper, it’s Condoleezza.
It doesn’t pass any of the tests: “Please rise for the honorable Condoleezza” does not sound plausible.
Whereas: “Put your hands together for the naughty nursemaid…Con-do-LEEZ-za!” sounds right.
One Demonica I knew only from her name tag at the store–not sure how she pronounced it. The other was a student and it was pronounced just like it is spelled, and she was a hellion–if she’d been sweet as sugar, I suspect people would have called her Moni or Mony or DeDe or something. Teachers see every name possible. The most stripper-like I’ve seen was an Odyxxey, pronounced Odyssey. Saddest was someone who was still “Baby Boy Smith” on all his school papers because no one had ever updated his birth certificate.
Dr. Rice does prove that its possible to become respected with pretty much any name and that you don’t need to be white to do so. As does Mr. Obama.
In some ways its like drinking during pregnancy - one drink or several PROBABLY won’t hurt, but what kind of Nobel prize might I have won had my mother abstained completely? Likewise, why burden my daughter with the name Mirage? White or black - seems its just easier to get through life without having to spell your name for everyone, or explain to people where it came from, or risk someone looking at four equally qualified resumes and saying "I’m only going to interview three…have to drop one off some stupid factor - typeface chosen for resume, name…
And that has less to do with race and ethnicity than just odd names.
But I think that’s so much easier to say when there are plenty of names avalible to you that are both mainstream and which resonate with your idea of what sort of name your child should have, what sounds right for a member of your family. Were my husband and I to relocate to Mexico, say, and have every intention of settling down there forever and raising our kids there, I still think I’d name any kid I had a WASP-ish name: I think we start thinking about what we might name our kids someday pretty much as soon as we become aware that names are given, not innate, and I have a real definite idea about what I think makes a beautiful name–a list that’s pretty heavily influenced by the names I grew up around. I’d want any child of mine to have a name that wasn’t just utilitarian, but lovely. And Paulo doesn’t ring my bell the way Paul does: Juan isn’t as beautiful as Ian, Maria isn’t as nice as Marie. Paulo, Juan and Maria are all perfectly nice names, but they aren’t names I’d use for my own kid. They wouldn’t sound like my kid.
I can respect giving your kid a name that sounds funny to you to let them fit in better, but I can also totally understand how it might be more important to have a name that sounds beautiful and right to you.
I’m sorry to admit it, but even as a black male, when I hear names like Talwanda or any other made up sounds like its tribal stuff, I instantly think the parents of that person had a screw loose. It doesn’t make me so upset that I’ll see red or anything, but it always reminds me of a girl I knew that had a baby while in high school. I can’t remember the kid’s name, but it was all her own creation. When i asked her why she named the boy that she said “Its sounds african. I wanted to give him an african name.”.
Hey, thats all fine, but you could have, you know, looked up some actual african names instead of making one up, IMO. It must be something I just don’t understand, since everyone in my family has fairly normal traditional names.
But your kid is not just your kid. They are their own individual, and if you are going to raise them in Mexico, they will assimilate into Mexican cultural. Paulo might sound weird to you, but to them Paul is going to sound weird. Now, if you relocate for a few years and intend to move back - different story.
And if you intend to raise your kid in Atlanta, and think they are likely to stay there, there are plenty of “black” or even “American South” names that have both cultural relevance and ‘respectability’ - in Atlanta and places like Atlanta. And there is a critical mass thing happening as well - eventually so many people will have “odd” or “misspelled” names (not only with the names coming out of Black culture and people of all colors believing that Armani and Porche are good names for their kids, but the number of Maheshes, Chandris, ChangLees, and Jesus’ I work with) that we will come to realize that its their name, they can spell it however they want and be called whatever they want and its just a label, not an indication of their worth. Maybe that will happen before this crop of kids with their odd names reaches the point where their could be name discrimination.
Name discrimination is not OK. But saying it doesn’t exist is denying reality - at least at this point in time - and it happens to be something you can avoid having your kid experience.
I don’t see it posted anywhere in this thread, but Tim Harford did his column in Slate on this subject.