Just to clarify, the Wayne reference is only for middle names that are used in combination with first names as a given name (e.g., Earl Ray). There is nothing wrong with the name itself but it is a naming convention that is especially common among white trash and redneck families. Those groups, especially the white trash ones, tend to produce a whole lot of shady people and way more than their fair share of serious criminals. It is just a correlation based on naming style and socioeconomic status. The name itself isn’t causing it but it leads people to believe that you are from a less than upstanding family.
My point is that naming conventions tend to follow socioeconomic patterns and it is best not to give your child one that follows the pattern of a lower socioeconomic status unless you want people to assume they are part of it. I am not the first person to notice this. Freakonomics has a whole chapter devoted to it and there have been many serious studies devoted to it.
It would be great if everyone was assumed to be exactly equal until proven otherwise but the world doesn’t work that way. If I told you someone just robbed a gas station and the people inside at the time were Donald Ray White, Winston McDonald III and Elizabeth Olivier, which one would you assume to be the robber? Which name would you rather have to put on a job application?
That John Doe or Thurston Howell III couldn’t both be induced ,by circumstances,to committ armed robbery or any violet crime…Their name alone cannot make them commit a crime…I admit there are many people named Ray in jail…but it is because there are many named Ray ,period.In a few years there will be alot of Jadens…Taylors…and McKenzie in prison because there are a bunch of those in schools now…of all creeds,colors and ethic backgrounds! Middle name or not…doesn’t matter…the theory is not sustainable because name popularity changes.
You guys are skating around the issue. It’s not about apostrophes. There is no reason why Jack O’Brien would be assumed to be a criminal. It’s not about Finish or Polish names or anything like that. The apostrophes are in a traditionally black name, and Shagnasty believes people with traditionally black names are more likely to be criminals.
Shagnasty, you just admitted to racism. Full stop. If you hear a black name and think the person is bad, then you must think that black names indicate criminality, and that is racist.
And now I know you hate me, because, guess what? My name is traditionally black. I don’t share it because it’s uncommon in my area, and I don’t want assholes to track me down for what I say online. But it is traditionally black.
You wrote me in PM that you try to be nice to people, even if you disagree with them. You are not being nice to me. You even admitted it, when you called yourself a “dickhead.” That is you admitting that your behavior here is not being nice to people.
And I’m sorry, but I’m not pulling back the “lecture” on this one. You have both personally hurt me and given me reason to doubt the sincerity of those PMs, where I started thinking of you as a friend.
I sincerely apologize if I hurt you personally. I promise you I didn’t mean to. I am just speaking in generalities and my opinions are based on articles I have read and consistent reactions I have noticed from other people. I have an unusual name too that people love to joke about. I still like it and own it though.
I honestly still don’t have any idea what race or ethic group De’Carlo Jackson was from. I would guess that he wasn’t the son of a doctor and lawyer and he probably came from a poor family with some less than conventional ideas but that is about it. His parents could have been Cuban refugees for all I know. I have never seen the name before.
Come to think of it, I have no idea what race or ethnic group you are from either other than being from Arkansas where a lot of my family lives. I promise you my PM’s were sincere. I just have some ideas that sound controversial at first but are still backed up by research. I have friends named everything from LaInger to Shataka and there is nothing inherently wrong with that except it isn’t doing them any favors in life. Based on my own personal experiences with an unusual name, I decided to give my daughters really classical names that wouldn’t close any doors for them.
BTW, the apostrophes are a real issue and not something I made up just to be bigoted. I am a systems analyst and database expert by profession. Apostrophes can really screw up SQL statements that run almost all major databases. That isn’t the person’s fault of course but it makes their life more difficult because routine things like health insurance just won’t work for them because the database code kicks them out into an error file or even causes problems for everyone else. Yes, that can and should be fixed but it is a large effort in total like fixing the Y2K problem and will probably never be fully re mediated. It is best just to avoid that hassle.
All three of those are perfectly normal names. I can’t imagine preferring any of those names on a job application. I’m not trying to be difficult, but, seriously, those are three perfectly middle-of-the-road names there.
All three of those are perfectly normal names. I can’t imagine preferring any of those names on a job application. I’m not trying to be difficult, but, seriously, those are three perfectly middle-of-the-road names there. As for the robber, I guess I’m supposed to guess one of the male names, but I don’t know which one is supposed to be more “suspicious.” Am I supposed to guess Winston, because his name is more unusual and because it’s more of a black name these days? Or am I supposed to guess the opposite, because it’s Winston and there’s a III on the end, that it’s a more aristocratic white name? I really don’t know what my prejudice is supposed to be here. I’m not being facetious, either. I really don’t know.
Don Cheadle…Donald Rumsfeld…Don Imus…Don Mclean…Donnie Walhberg…you see how many differing kind of people can have one particular name…It is lame to think you can attribute a criminal behavior solely on someone’s name…with no other criteria to work with…not possible…if you do…your’re clearly wrong
Freakonomics…seriously? Not exactly a glowing cite for the arguement…It ain’t exactly Harvard or Yale? No the theory is unsupportable…clearly a new kind of bigotry has reared its ugly head…as if we didn’t have enough!!
Clearly you didn’t listen to the cite I provided. Freakonomics Podcasts are just a media outlet. The whole thing is filled with interviews with academics from prestigious universities but there is no point in giving you more examples until you give open your mind and display some degree of cooperation and evaluate the ideas presented objectively. It is pretty clear that you have an incredibly closed mind right now but that may change because you may be smart enough for it.
BTW, I am listening to the whole thing again right now just to make sure I have it right and I do. It is worthwhile to listen to.
I agree that they should be able to but many legacy systems can’t. You have to explicitly design them for that type of thing. That is part of my job and it is a much more expensive and complicated problem than most people can imagine. We aren’t just talking about apostrophes, the full solution requires special handling for all kinds of special characters and alternate alphabets. That isn’t going to happen any time soon for all systems because most systems feed into another one and, even if you fix one, you can still have problems downstream.
Do your kids a favor and don’t name them something like Di’Quarious$ because it will cause needless issues throughout their lives. It doesn’t matter if that is justified or not. It is just a simple fact of most systems architecture.
And you assist ignorance in winning when you latch onto and embrace unjust phenomena like name discrimination, rather than advocate resisting and changing them. I’m not saying you have to give your daughters unusual names, but you should teach them not to judge people based on their names, that such judgment is wrong, and you shouldn’t advocate in threads like this that such name discrimination is acceptable or anything but unjust.
Not a huge deal, but you’re helping ignorance win here, even just a little bit.