What is up with African American names

Factual Questions
21

Jomo: Not that I know anything about Southern Baptists, but something smells fishy to me about your baptism explanation.

Most kids I know who get baptised/christened generally end up getting done a number of months after birth - but there’s pressure on the parents to have a name for the kid right from day one. Firstly because all the visitors want to have something to call the sprog, and secondly because there’s a legal requirement to put something on the birth certificate.

Haven’t there been cases of nurses trying to convince parents that they “have to get the name on the birth certificate before leaving the hospital”? It seems like all the naming stuff will be sewn up well before a kid of any religion gets within cooee of a baptismal font.

Which is not to deny that there’s a cultural pressure among Catholics to give your kid a “real saint’s name” (not that it worked in my family). But that’s a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

22

An earlier thread on this subject:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=11873

23

To quote from the above article, I see in the 1700’s “Most avante-garde, to our 21st century ears, were the word names used for and by African-Americans, signifying everything from virtues à la the Puritan naming tradition to weather. The use of these kinds of names relate to the African belief in the power of a name to shape personality or influence fate or impart a desirable quality. Some virtue and word names that have been recorded among early African-Americans are:”

Then, among the male’s names are: Hardtimes, Lowlife, Misery, Suffer and Vice. Who would name their kids that? Was there some belief that if you named your kid something bad, he’d turn out the opposite? Then why at the same time were they naming their kids Charity, Hope, Love and Pleasant?

24

Since when does a name have to mean something in order not to be “bizarre”? It’s easy to name your kid John or Susan. A more creative name may have much more meaning to the parents.

BTW, my name, which is a fine upstanding Hebrew name, in the Bible and everything, gets called “weird” and “bizarre” here in whitebread land. I get tired of that, and of people feeling free to ask “Why did your parents give you a weird/made up/foreign name?” and of people not learning how to spell it or pronounce it. I’ve got to tell you that people in Providence and Baltimore, where there’s a lot more ethnic and cultural diversity, did a lot better job with it than my esteemed associates in the northwest.

25

I’ve always thought that Shoshanah is one of the most beautiful names in the whole world. Probably the most beautiful. (It’s also, à propos of nothing, my ex-wife’s name. Well, she was actually Suzanne, but she was Shoshanah to me.)

26

tlw: Could you please show me where, in any of the posts above, the was said or implied?

27

You’re not Baptist are you. :wink:

I’m the son, brother and nephew of Southern Baptist ministers, and I’ve never heard of this in my life. People name their kid at birth or shortly after. There really is no connection between naming and baptism at all. Baptism per se is actually a much bigger deal for Catholics, being as it is a sacrament. For Baptists, it’s just a symbolic ceremony. Nothing “happens.”

Also, FWIW, many, many other Protestant denominations also do not formally baptize children.

28

One of my favorite games to play is “Houseplant? Or Black Baby Name”

29

Hey, it is not only American-Black, and puzzlement over it is not necessarily racially connected – more like socially. For instance, a converse situation in US popular culture is the stereotype of someone with an obviously biblical name like Jebediah or Zebedee being an old coot from the sticks.

Here in Puerto Rico there has been a… ahem… outbreak, of made-up names, specially for little girls, since the late 70s. Yeidahiris, Katriria, Anailimé, Dayanara, Luzeida-Dazlín, etc. Everyone wants a “unique” or “exotic” name for some reason. Ocassionally they’ll have a case where you want to name the child after a relative, but the relative’s name is “too ordinary” so you funk it up by transposing letters, or anglifying/francifying it, or shuffling it with some other names (Glenyamilette) ; Then there are the cases where it seems the parent heard a non-Spanish name they liked, but either (a) had no idea as to the correct spelling or (b) feared that others would not know how to pronounce it, resulting in names like “Dahián”, which is really “Dianne” rendered into Spanish phonetics.

These are apart from what I call “Kodak names”: not meaningful in any language, just a string of phonemes that “sounds sort of [whatever your criterion]” – which still, if you think about it, is better than picking up a word at random and ending up with something that means “where the dog sleeps”.

Now, the tendency towards “exotic” names is not new at all. It’s just that the amount of made-up names is more noticeable of late – In the past, parents would seek out “exotic” names from well-established names and/or meaningful words from other cultures . So for instance here we’d have families that would name the girls Francia and Igualdad which probably meant dad was a francophile (or a freemason), homes where the boys would be named Publio, Flavio and Catón, which tended to indicate mom was into the Roman classics, and a whole bunch of Alexeis, Vladimiros and Nadeshas who let us know that at home they were Tostoy/Dostoyevski/Chekov fans (or Bolshy sympathizers :wink: ). Our relatively large Arab comunity makes it common to see Puerto Rican Omars, Yamils, and Zoraidas; plus around the 1970s there was a spate of “native” names that gave us a bunch of Urayoans, Yahureibos and Guaynias.

To take examples from this very thread, Shoshanah would not be a “weird” name – it’s a well-established, classic name that just happens to have been transcribed into Western languages as Susannah/Susan/Suzanne . Shauku and Morathi would be exotic but they are actual names/words from an African cultural context. OTOH, my cousin Glenyamilette is just a victim of her mother.

30

My Afro-Caribbean European sister, and her African-American husband, have just named their child the name:

“Billtheus”
(slightly altered for the sake of anonymity)

It’s the father’s uncle’s name, and it appears to be completely made up. I have no idea where it came from, and nor do they.

31

Not so much in the UK, I think – most recent black immigrants are West Indians and have (in my experience) names from the Bible. Their children have ‘ordinary’ UK names.

I personally think this is a general cultural thing, not just about race. In the past identity was all about fitting in and fixing your position in your family, hence the same name repeated for generations and the preponderance of certain names in certain circles of society (Rupert, StJohn and so on). These days defining yourself is all about being distinct, different from the rest – thus choosing a name that no one else will have.

32

furt, here you go:

Although it wasn’t specifically addressed by you or tlw, I left in the part about “goofy hippy names,” which apparently are less offensive than made-up black names because they are not so inscrutable to “white America.”

I don’t see that raisinbread’s post necessarily reflects his/her personal views. I took it as a commentary on mainstream white Americans’ reaction to out-of-the-ordinary names, and a question as to whether those with certain names felt they were problematic.

33

[quote]
My question which is wholly meant to take this thread off topic are how many black Dopers are actually proud of having bizarre African-esque names or just hide them by using something simpler either because the name is so outrageous or the rest of the world has had so much trouble trying to spell slash pronounce the names that they gave up because the name was more trouble than it is worth?
[/quote[

I don’t have a “bizarre” name, but if I had been born with a name that I liked, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought about it. Changing it just to be more “mainstream” is being a sell-out.

Why do white people name their children such common names like “Jessica” and “John” and “Christopher”? I’ve always wondered why more creativity isn’t put into the naming of white people.

So we should all have American names Skip and Sally? No thanks.

It makes sense that black Americans have chosen to distinguish themselves with unique names. Other Americans can choose ethnic first names without it seeming like a big deal because they are descended from non-stigmitized ethnic groups. When black Americans try to foster an identity that reflects their culture (which unfortunately was stripped and isolated from it’s ancestral homeland), they get laughed at because black culture is routinely stigmatized. Black naming is a form of rebellion. It’s a way of rejecting complete assimilation.

Jomo, it’s not a Southern Baptist thing. Most black people aren’t Southern Baptist, so I don’t think this is a logical explanation. Also, many Arabic names are given to black people. How is that a Christian thing?

I think tlw’s frustration is stemming from the fact that people keep using the word “bizarre” (negative connotation) to describe “black” name. All names at one time or another were “bizarre”. Also, this topic has come up time and time again. It gets tiring after awhile, especially if you’re black.

34

I remember that being “gooble gobble” rather than “gobble gobble.”

35

I don’t have a “bizarre” name, but if I had been born with a name that I liked, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought about it. Changing it just to be more “mainstream” is being a sell-out.

Why do white people name their children such common names like “Jessica” and “John” and “Christopher”? I’ve always wondered why more creativity isn’t put into the naming of white people.

So we should all have American names Skip and Sally? No thanks.

It makes sense that black Americans have chosen to distinguish themselves with unique names. Other Americans can choose ethnic first names without it seeming like a big deal because they are descended from non-stigmitized ethnic groups. When black Americans try to foster an identity that reflects their culture (which unfortunately was stripped and isolated from it’s ancestral homeland), they get laughed at because black culture is routinely stigmatized. Black naming is a form of rebellion. It’s a way of rejecting complete assimilation.

Jomo, it’s not a Southern Baptist thing. Most black people aren’t Southern Baptist (I don’t think), so I don’t think this is a logical explanation. Also, many Arabic names are given to black people. How is that a Christian thing?

I think tlw’s frustration is stemming from the fact that people keep using the word “bizarre” (negative connotation) to describe “black” name. All names at one time or another were “bizarre”. Also, this topic has come up time and time again. It gets tiring after awhile, especially if you’re black
.

36

I’ve always wondered why I was named after my father. Now I know it is a Southern Baptist thing. My father must have lied when he told me that his father named him after two of his best friends. After all, my father and grandfather were Southern Baptists, so it must have been because of that that we have whimsical, made up names. How I envy those Presbyterians and Episcopalians, with their upper-class, recycled mainstream names.

Gotta be the most bizarre naming theory I’ve ever encountered.

As to Black people giving their children such unique names, so what? Who cares? What’s in a name?

37

Well, Raisin, there was this little thing that happened here in the U.S. called slavery, perhaps you may have heard about it. It’s true! These people were stripped of their identities and given the surnames of their Anglo “owners”, which, according to you, lack any real heritage.

38

The article referenced a couple posts up mentioned that in general, the lower the education level of the mother, the more likely she was to just “make up” some silly name for her child. So it follows then that most people with these bogus wanna-be “african” names grew up in something of an ignorant environment.

I am the human resources manager for a large company. My job is to find and hire the best-educated, best-qualified people who have a team-player attitude and can get along with others. My experience has been that, in general, when I see a name like Queshonda or Labwiesha, I will probably be dealing with a lower-class type, one who quite often has an “attitude”. The name is a big red flag, and usually these applications just get tossed or buried.

If I were a black parent, one of the best things I could do for my child would be to give him or her an easy-to-pronounce, race-neutral name. After all, the kid’s name will eventually end up on an employment application somewhere.

39

Amongst Brits of Caribbean origin the “porcelein latrine” type names are increasingly common. I suspect that this is more to do with American influence than anything else.

FWIW most Brits find american names quite funny eg Stryker McGuire Studs Turkel etc…

40

Another thing to throw out there. One of my coworkers names her children (4 of them) kinda after her family (herself, husband, and both sets of their parents). There is Kisean (there youngest)… half Kisha and half Sean. There is Laquequaquan (not sure of the spelling) Which is Lavita (her mother), Quenten (one of their fathers) and something else thrown in at the end. Her name, Laquequaquan, always throws me off. It is pronounced Lah-kwee kwuh-kwahn. I can’t remember her other two kids names at the moment. However, the point was that both her and her husband make up names based on syllables of the names around them.