If Anastacia was a name with no known origins, would it suddenly become ridiculous to the Dopers here?
What makes a name ridiculous? Not having origins or the way it sounds to the ear?
Um, you know the drill - you make the assertion, you provide the cite. I can easily see more Charlies than Anastasias in the U.S. but that’s only about 5% of the world’s population. There are a lot of people in the slavic countries.
I’m sure at one point in time, Anastasia *was *a ridiculous name. Now it’s not. Here’s the thing about names: they’re choices. (In our country, at least.) They are not assigned through a throw of the genetic dice. They are not alloted by a higher authority. Therefore, the name chosen says something about the personal values of the chooser - whether that’s conformity or creativity or tradition or whatever. And, in our country at least, a name is not permanent. As long as you’re defrauding no one, you can use any name at all, without even the legal headaches of an official name change. So for adults, their name is a choice, and that choice reflects their values. So I don’t think it’s at all analogous to race. You don’t get to choose to be White or Black or Latino. But you do get to choose whether you give your kid a unique name or an old-fashioned name or a trendy name or your great-grandmother’s name, and when you’re an adult, you get to choose whether or not to keep using that name, and you can choose any other name in the world which you think better reflects your values and personality.
And, whether or not you think people SHOULD discriminate against names (which I don’t think they should, actually; I think they should have the right to, but I would think less of those who exercised that right), the reality is that they DO. I don’t think people should think fat people are lazy indulgent slobs, either, but they do. And if I could change my weight as easily as I could change my name, I would, in a heartbeat, so people wouldn’t think that of me. (And also so I could play on the floor with my kid, but that’s another matter.)
And I’m asking why. Why is it NOT a ridiculous name?
Why are the other names so wrong, but the one name that can be associated with white people isn’t?
“Because it is just is” isn’t a good answer.
[Moderating]
[I wonder if there is some way I could put this in flashing lights]
Please refer to my comments in post #95, and my post about a dozen up on this page. If you want to discuss name discrimination, please start another thread.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Ditto.
Right now it is about a common a baby name as Alison, Eleanor, Nina, Lola, Leila, Selena, Josie, Heidi and Julie. Way down on the list in the high 200’s out of the top 1000 baby names, but hardly hidden in the depths of obscurity. It’s a bit old-fashined, like the biblical names Miriam and Esther near it on the list and a bit ethnic ( Greek, Russian ) like the neighboring Tatiana. Somewhat more popular than the variant Natasha.
Huh. I think it is kind of a pretty name.
Don’t be so quickly dismissive. I won’t speak to any of those other names, but boys names pronounced as Taiwan are pretty far from unknown. I’ve taught several boys by that name in the last 10 years.
Tai’Juan
Ti’Juan
Tyewon
are some of the spellings I remember.
For the past couple years, there’s been a cluster of boys coming through with names pronounced as Tevye, but spelled many different_and not intuitively obvious_ways.
I’ve known one Peter, and one Anastasia (pronounced A-nah-stah-zia) and none of the others on that list. Of course Anastasia got fed up with people pronouncing her name wrong when she was young(she didn’t get mad at people just thought correcting them was more trouble than it was worth) and decided to go by Stacey so…
Anastasia isn’t really out there as far as names. In fact I thought it was in the top 100 common baby names list or something along those lines. It’s pretty old as well, it really is no different than George, Nancy, Robin, Ted, or Charlie.
And because of teh recent post I made a thread for debate about name discrimination:
I’m only suggesting that the “I found the name on the end of a shoebox=Taiwan” is, almost certainly, an urban legend.
My point is this: No, it’s not as common as Charlie or Jack or Robin, but it’s much closer to them on the scale than a recently created name like some of the others listed. Look at some of the information posted in this thread: Variations of Anastasia have been part of the Anglo-Saxon stock of names for about 800 years. The fact that hearing the name made you think “Some idiot has named her kid after a cartoon!” is a rather remarkable reaction, as if someone has named a kid “Hong Kong Phooey” or “Scooby-Doo.” “Anastasia” as a name used in Britain and America is much more comparable to the perfectly ordinary names on my list.
I think the interesting thing is that this thread could not really stick very close to the question in the title, because it’s not really about “the origins of some urban African American names.” It seems to be about something else entirely.
Thank you. I am just posting this to highlight this for those who want to continue that discussion. I would also note there is a recent IMHO thread on the subject as well.
yes, i do know more anastasias than charlies. i personally know only 2 charlies, 3 jacks, and 4 robins. i know at least 15 anastasias that i can count right off the tip of my brain. if i were to really think about it i could name a ton more. i do hang out with a large group of greeks and slavs.
Again, you MIGHT want to go to Russia first-Anastasia is a very common name there. There are probably “millions more people” named Anastasia than Charlie over in Eastern Europe. Does that make Charlie “exotic?”
Hey, my Russian professor’s name was Igor-what about that?
As for so-called “ridiculous” names, unless they’re puns with one’s last names, who cares? And why only African-American names? Does that mean Russian names are somehow “ridiculous?”
(I would name my daughter Anastasia-I think it’s a beautiful name, and most people around here know that I’m a Russian history buff).
“Cruel” is making fun of someone’s name in the first place.
Hi! My real life name is Anastasia. I didn’t think it was a cruel or funny name at all. I’ve had some very old people think it odd, but other than that, not really so much. I’ve never personally run into another Anastasia, and I actually go by Stasia most of the time - I have heard of several other Stasia/Stacias, though, and hoardes of "Stacy"s - the diminutive of the name in question. You probably know more Anastasia’s than you realise if they choose, instead, to go by the more popular diminutive.
I’ve been made fun of for many things in my life, but my name, among peers, has never been one of them.
Thanks for the chuckle, though!
Submitted only for your anecdotal pleasure. The plural of anecdote does not equal data. Your experiences with and opinions of the name Anastasia will vary depending on the laws in your state. Please write to your congressmen for more details. Offer not valid in Florida. Void if removed.
While there are ULs about the source of some names, I can only say that I was told this by my mother who was the students teacher. To you it’s hearsay, to me it’s the truth. YMMV.
Many years ago I worked for a Direct Marketing company, the ones who send out junk mail (please don’t hate me for that). They had a database of 160 million names addresses and phone numbers pulled from postal and phone company records. I saw some of the most screwed up names you can imagine. There were the various spellings of Tiffany and Britney and Caitlin, the humorous names of Fred Flintstone, Mickey Mouse, Santa Claus and the cruel names like July Forth, Pete Moss, Dick Wascher and, my personal favorite, Anita Goodlay. These are all real names and, for the life of me, I don’t know why anyone would want to keep the name Sandy Beach or Peter Sack.
Sometimes, I think people take more care in naming their pets than they do in naming their kids. Whether it is through ignorance, naiveté or a warped sense of humor, they are saddling their child with a name that can lead to ridicule and embarrassment. I’m not saying that all children should be named Jessica or Jason, but parents should try to make sure that the names they choose aren’t going to raise eyebrows of other people. Ask your friends/family/neighbors. If you don’t speak the prevalent language of the country, make sure that you are not choosing a name that is offensive or unusual (if I was in Germany I wouldn’t name my son Scheiße). And, for og’s sake, be consistent with your spelling! Don’t spell the kid’s name Cathleen one week and then Kathleen the next. The poor kid won’t know what the hell their name is.
Telephone companies do not usually require documentation of the personal names under which a telephone number is listed in directories. And the U.S. Postal Service does not require documentation of the additional names of people who may receive mail at a certain address. Hence, pseudonyms can be, and are, used. May I suggest that many of the names gathered from those sources and appearing on marketing lists are not legal names.
mks57 wrote:
That’s what I thought after reading the OP. For some reason, there are a lot of LDS girls out in Salt Lake with names beginning with “La–”, and they’re not the usual ones.
LaDawn
Lanette (not “Lynette”, as elsewhere)
LaShawna
and so on. I have no idea how this trend started.
By the way, folks, “Lemonjello” doesn’t belong on the list of weird names. “Lemongello” is a legit Italian surname. I giggled when I first heard it, but it doesn’t seem ridiculiys in Italy. All they’ve been guilty of is respelling the name.
Apparently others have noticed this, too, and complained to the Freakonomics folks:
I had to look that one up to remind me what movie it was. Not exactly a box office smash.
“Anastasia” isn’t any weirder than “Elizabeth,” is it?
I know but I was responsible for data accuracy and so we had to validate the information across multiple sources to create an accurate database. They bought mailing lists, correlated all names at an address, got demographic information from the government, etc. Plus, this company was affiliated with one of the credit reporting agencies so we had a better grip on what was real and what was fake. We knew who your neighbors were, what the median house value was in a neighborhood, what your previous address was, how long you had been at your current address, what your age was and your Social Security Number. And this was back in 1996. Nowadays you can find all that crap online. Back then we were cutting edge. Yeah, this company was worse than Big Brother. Thank God I got out of there.