Effect of children's names

[jdsmith]

@finley

If you think your brain works differently to everyone else’s, you’re just kidding yourself.

My brain may not be different, but my filter sure is.

[finley]

@jdsmith

And who decides if a name is “stupid?”

The listener.

• “Hi, my name is ABCD”
• “bwahahaha. Sorry”

My point is merely that just because you have installed Prejudice Filter V2.0 Extended Edition, nobody else has.

[jdsmith]

Sorry dude. Don’t switch to that silliness, “English” names for Taiwanese kids, from Black American names. Totally different recipes.

@finley

The listener.

And listeners tend to be biased. Like yer actually showing here. Not that I’m not biased. I mean “Finley?” bwahaha. What? Were you a good swimmer?

And before this goes sour. Respect always, Finley. Read your words for years. Big fan.

[finley]

I’m afraid you completely lost me here, so I can’t really respond anyway.

[jdsmith]

That works for me.

[jdsmith]

@finley

Just to be clear, the issue here is not the uniqueness of the name. It’s how stupid it sounds in its cultural context. Most people can grasp that a foreigner might be called YoYo because those phonemes aren’t inherently funny in his native language, but if an American is called Yoyo, it’s probably because his parents are idiots.

How’s this as I step out and into my day: You mentioned the cultural context. If a Black kid is named, say, Yaya, YOU think this is stupid, you interpreting HIS culturally scripted name through YOUR whateveritis clearly culturally biased filter?

I shall refrain from letting him know how you feel about his name and the intelligence of his parents, which you have determined to be significantly deficient in THEIR OWN CULTURE.

What about an Afghani kid named Muhamadullah? Is that one OK with you because it’s more rooted in a culture and religion (Muslim) where you would expect to hear such a “unique” sounding name when heard outside their culture? Or my Nepali neighbors, Sanush and Nisha?

[finley]

@jdsmith

If a Black kid is named, say, Yaya, YOU think this is stupid, you interpreting HIS culturally scripted name through YOUR whateveritis clearly culturally biased filter?

“Black” is not a cultural context, and I think it’s appalling that Americans insist that it is. I don’t give a rat’s ass what color his skin is. If I know for a fact that he’s a first- or second-generation immigrant, I’ll withhold judgement on his name. If he and his parents were born in the same city as me, I’ll take a guess that his parents were idiots, and may possibly have raised him to be an idiot too. I don’t know why people are even talking about “black names” here. When I gave the two random examples at the top, I was just picturing some generic snot-nosed kids. Not black kids.

The thing about prejudice is that you can recognise that it’s there and try to work around it. So if the interaction is important - say, I’m talking to ‘Yaya’ in a job interview - then I’ll do my best to get past my first impressions. But I’ve been through that rigmarole quite a lot in the Philippines - where stupid names are a bit of a thing - and occasionally I get to meet the parents, and it turns out that even though the kid is normal … yup, sure enough, the parents are idiots, and they do all sorts of idiot things that hold the kid back in life. Giving him/her a dumb name was just the start of a lifelong pattern of low-level parenting failure.

@jdsmith

What about an Afghani kid named Muhamadullah? Is that one OK with you because it’s more rooted in a culture and religion (Muslim) where you would expect to hear such a “unique” sounding name when heard outside their culture? Or my Nepali neighbors, Sanush and Nisha?

Like I said, those names aren’t unique. The syllables are familiar to anyone who’s watched the news or the Nat Geo channel, even if the names themselves aren’t. When I started this conversation, I was referring to invented names. Kids named after kitchen appliances or fruit or cars or pornstars, or being given a handle with superfluous 'z’s and 'j’s, or names that are just downright unpronounceable.

You can certainly make a case that some invented names enter general circulation. But most of the dumb ones don’t … because they sound dumb.

[tempogain]

You’re really confused about American culture. Such names are an American cultural practice. I immediately recognize the name holders as American, just as I would do with the Afghani or Nepali names if I was sufficiently familiar with their culture. I don’t understand why you think people’s cultural naming practices are not good enough for them.

[Emilichinelo]

@Uncreativeusername

I really don’t know what’s wrong with calling your kid Paul or Jessica.

I think it’s because we’ve all met so many Pauls and Jessicas. We hear the names so often that when we think of Paul, we think of a faceless, regular nobody.
Parents believe that their child is special. Their child can’t have nobody’s name! They have to be creative and think of something that stands out.

But some of the creative names are the very things that label their child as a nobody.

[Whatevah]

I don’t think weird sounding is a problem but parents should avoid names that the population at large associate with negative adjectives like ghetto black, white trash or Islamic terrorism.

[Dr_Milker]

@Emilichinelo

I think it’s because we’ve all met so many Pauls and Jessicas. We hear the names so often that when we think of Paul, we think of a faceless, regular nobody.

It’s OK to be Paul or Jessica.

[finley]

@tempogain

You’re really confused about American culture. Such names are an American cultural practice. I immediately recognize the name holders as American.

How can you, if those names are one-offs or highly unusual? Unless you’re listening to an American accent in an American city, you have absolutely no way of knowing if Cherryblossom or Adonis is American.

[Emilichinelo]

I think so too.

[tempogain]

Maybe I’m confused. Did we go from Jaddeus and Ai’Janae to Cherryblossom or Adonis somewhere along the line?

[Steve4nLanguage]

These guys had a lot of fun with this. Lots of parodies out there, but this was the one that started it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNjuyjWaAp0

[finley]

@tempogain

Maybe I’m confused. Did we go from Jaddeus and Ai’Janae to Cherryblossom or Adonis somewhere along the line?

What’s the difference? How would you know “Jaddeus” is American if you hadn’t read about him in an American news report? Do you know lots of Americans called Jaddeus? He could equally be Nigerian or Chinese as far as I’m concerned. I accept that maybe I just don’t understand American culture, but I reckon there’s a higher-than-average probability that Jaddeus’s parents are idiots, and I would have guessed that even without reading about his exploits.

[Dawud]

@jdsmith

What about an Afghani kid named Muhamadullah?

Is…that really somebody’s name? That sounds like it would mean “Muhammad is God,” which would be weird theologically.

[finley]

Somebody, somewhere, has seen that video and decided to call her daughter Clitorisandrea. Y’know cos it sounds nice and all.

[Whatevah]

@Dawud

@jdsmith

What about an Afghani kid named Muhamadullah?

Is…that really somebody’s name? That sounds like it would mean “Muhammad is God,” which would be weird theologically.

Means Mohammad’s God still kinda weird but whatever. They have “God’s Slave”/“Ali’s Slave” and “God’s Lion” as well.

[tempogain]

You’re not following me. I immediately recognized those names as American. That you didn’t, and would compare them to “Cherryblossom or Adonis”, and make other comments about them that you have, seems to me to more a reflection of your lack of knowledge of American culture than anything. Not that there’s any reason you should have such knowledge.