I write textbooks for a living. That means I write a lot of word problems (e.g., “Billy and Susie are designing an experiment to determine blah blah blah.”)
When writing word problems, I try to come up with names that aren’t bland and boring, that sound like names that students in the given age group have today, and that reflect the ethnic makeup of the nation as a whole. Except the program I’m currently working on is only going to be sold only in Texas. Which opens up lots of possibilities.
I know there is a large Vietnamese minority in SE Texas, so I’ve thrown in a couple of Vietnamese names. And I used “Cord” once, based on the cowboy (not from Texas) who competed on The Amazing Race a year or two ago.
Long intro. Sorry.
If anyone out there (a) lives in Texas and either (b1) teaches high school or (b2) has teenagers, could you please let me know of some first names that might be common in Texas but not in, say, Connecticut (where I live). Secondarily, do kids still have double names like “Jim Bob” or “Billie Jo”?
Jesus, Hector, Maria, Juana for the hispanic crowd
Caleb, Joshua, Esther, Ruth for the Biblers
Jim, Steve, Nancy, Peggy for the old school crowd
Remember, Texas has some large cities (Houston, Dallas). Lots of mixes of ethnicities. African & Asian (as your OP noted) names might be useful.
I was born and raised in SE Texas 50 yrs ago, and double names were very rare in my experience.
I’m not arguing the forum change, Colibri, but I would like to emphasize that I’m looking for factual answers, not opinions. Not, “I think these are good names for you to use,” but rather, “These are the names of a couple of kids in my son’s 11th-grade class.”
And thanks to NoClue, Tom, and Rhythm for the suggestions.
Do the names need to be distinctively Texan? I mean, “John” is surely a common name in Texas, but it’s a common name everywhere else in the English-speaking world, too.
Don’t know if it is popular in Texas, but Dallas seems to be a common first name - knew a guy in Illinois and there is an attorney who advertises here in Las Vegas and they both have the first name of Dallas.
Yes, I’m hoping to pick up a few that are distinctively Texan, so as to sound authentic to the ears of the Texas students reading the textbook.*
I mean, I know two different people from Alabama named Barbara Jean and Joe Bob (although they’re middle-aged adults, not teenagers). I’d love to be able to use a few names like that, if I could assure my client that each is an authentic name of at least one Texas high school student.
Maybe no such thing exists in this day and age. I just thought I’d ask.
*Not that they read with their ears. You know what I mean.
ETA: Cord (see earlier post) is another example of, if not Texan, at least a regional name. We don’t have a lot of them in New England.
Back in Texas, I knew a Jerl. Sort of pronounced like Gerald if you were to start choking as soon as you started saying the name. He was the only one I encountered though.
I’m a high school teacher in Texas. No one has those country sounding double names, they are silly, and they would make your text sound silly. I don’t know what to tell you. Texas is an urban state, it lost its country-western identity several generations ago. I can’t think of any uniquely Texan names that are common. The common names you hear in Texas are the common names you’d hear in New York, California, Pennsylvania, or Florida.
The most common names in my school are Jose and Maria. There are a lot of Vietnamese people in Texas (more than anywhere other than Vietnam). But the school age kids are all 2nd or 3rd generation. They have such regular “white people” first names it must be a deliberate attempt at assimilation.
I’ve lived in Texas my whole life and never heard of anyone named Dallas outside of a “b” movie.
Remember that Texas is 40% Hispanic and 12% black, so choosing country cracker sounding names isn’t exactly reaching out to the population. Especially since 88% of Texans live in large cities.
Well, at my sister’s New Year’s Eve party (in Arlington) this year were Nick, Sara, Chase, Michael, Tanya, Brittany, Tyler, Dean, Carter, Zoe, Jamail, Sami, Thomas, Madison, Marcus, Johnny, and David. That’s about 80% traditional “white kids,” and one each Vietnamese, Korean, Kuwaiti, Mexican, Nigerian, and African-American.
But why not just look at a recent yearbook from some Texas high school? They’re easy to find on eBay.
