Are black names weird or are you just racist?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I have never had any real problem with weird names. What does piss me off is when people name their kids something that already exists, but spell it like idiots. There's no reason to spell "Cindy" like "Syndee." Just stop.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

I always figured if I had children, which I'm not, but in the off chance of unexpected surprises, I would give them Mythological or Byzantine Greek names. Because it's sort of a shadow of who I am, but I'd have to be extra careful with it.

Epiphany for example, love that name for a girl, but what the hell would it be shortened to, Pip? Ew.
Euphrosyne (Yoo-fro-see-nay) or Eudoxia (Yoo-doch-ia): another issue.

Boys just seem to have better options for nicknames, even in the exotic. I would probably want to put the odd historical names as middle names, just to save the kid grief growing up from teachers and bullies.

I would assume Epiphany was a black girl if I just heard the name mentioned.

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I worked for a time doing phone sales for a wireless provider. We were paid on sales per call. The selling part was easy provided our buyers could pass the credit check. I know I'm not the only one who would try to burn through calls as quickly as possible when we were talking to a "Sha-whatever" or "La-whatever". The exception being if we were speaking to someone with one of those names from Chicago or NYC. The fact that it was a black co-worker who first remarked on the "Sha/La" rule did not excuse the racism. Of course, the job was high volume sales so there was a special kind of imprinting that went on there that encouraged stereotyping of all sorts, racism just being one of many kinds.

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Also, my daughter, though named after the daughter of a Caladanian Duke/Bene Gesserit abomination, has a name that sounds like a dead black pop-singer. Like Epiphany, many people would assume she's a black girl just by hearing her name. Neither here nor there, that, but fun fact all the same.

[LMNO]

Also, my daughter, though named after the daughter of a Caladanian Duke/Bene Gesserit abomination, has a name that sounds like a dead black pop-singer.

You named your daughter Michael Jackson?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Eleftheria Is a lovely classical Greek name you see a lot for girls. Might carry bad connotations now with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleftheria_i_thanatos and the Right wing movement in Greece.

Now that I think about it, I take all the Irish names for granted but outside of Ireland you hear Lots of awful attempts to pronounce it just like Siobhan. Padraig, Ciaran, Aoifa, peader etc are all names that unless you are Irish tend to be mangled.

I know there was a strong racist sentiment towards Irish people in the US back when we sent all our builders over. How popular would they be now in the US and would they carry any stigma of lower class?

I've Anglicised my name because I got sick of people trying to pronounce it, mikalis would come out MA-CALL-IS instead of Me cal-ees, now I just use plain old michael or mike but it never fully feels right.

Irish names are common enough here, whether of Irish descent or not, though they're almost universally anglicized (Siobhan is still usually spelled that way, but Ciaran is usually spelled Kieran). Padraigs would probably just be named Patrick. I have heard that some people assume Siobhan is a black name because of both the spelling and the pronunciation.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have never had any real problem with weird names. What does piss me off is when people name their kids something that already exists, but spell it like idiots. There's no reason to spell "Cindy" like "Syndee." Just stop.

Why?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I have never had any real problem with weird names. What does piss me off is when people name their kids something that already exists, but spell it like idiots. There's no reason to spell "Cindy" like "Syndee." Just stop.

Why?

Because on the inside, I'm a crotchety old conservative asshole who just wants people to quit being so pointlessly weird.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Also, my daughter, though named after the daughter of a Caladanian Duke/Bene Gesserit abomination, has a name that sounds like a dead black pop-singer.

You named your daughter Michael Jackson?

Alia of the Knife.

Is her middle name "of the Knife"?

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Irish Gaelic names can be quite difficult too. Like Siobhan.

Shove on. Actually that would be a really funny one to see spelled phonetically or otherwise simplified.

I was almost named Siobhan. One of my sisters has Mairead and no-one (including family members!) can seemingly spell or pronounce that shit correctly. I like Irish names that have not been anglicized but even I struggle with the pronunciations of some of them. If I was going to accidentally sprog I'd probably go for something along those lines. These days anti-Irish sentiment is so much of non-existant in the UK the pronunciation issues would probably distract folks from any class implications. 

[Junkenstein]

I always figured if I had children, which I'm not, but in the off chance of unexpected surprises, I would give them Mythological or Byzantine
I worked for a time doing phone sales for a wireless provider. We were paid on sales per call. The selling part was easy provided our buyers could pass the credit check. I know I'm not the only one who would try to burn through calls as quickly as possible when we were talking to a "Sha-whatever" or "La-whatever". The exception being if we were speaking to someone with one of those names from Chicago or NYC. The fact that it was a black co-worker who first remarked on the "Sha/La" rule did not excuse the racism. Of course, the job was high volume sales so there was a special kind of imprinting that went on there that encouraged stereotyping of all sorts, racism just being one of many kinds.

I did a stint in sales for my sins. The UK version had all of this in various different forms. Asian/Indian names were fought over for one particular relatively high value product. Stereotypical "english" names for another.

It's worth thinking about the kind of self reinforcing programming that this probably had on a lot of them. I know a lot of people burnt leads because they'd spoken to a "similar" name. I'd guess there's a very interesting chart to be made regarding sales data. It's reasonable to assume that say, google has pretty much perfect marketing info for a number of people. Targeted ads make money consistently. Products are sold through them all the time. That's pretty passive.

Now imagine if say, the NSA wanted to sell you something. No, not like that. Actually offer you a product you need at the right price. Certain people could make a lot of money knowing that X amount of product is reasonably likely to be sold. There's big money in personal data. The more (Quantity and quality) you can provide and the more accurate and "fresh" it is kicks the price up. It's been a long time since I looked at it, but I recall offhand data in the UK costing anywhere from fractions of a pence a name to upwards of several thousand pounds depending on the criteria.

The question really becomes a matter of time until someone wants to sell you something. For example, the "Sha/La" names above are probably targeted to fuck for debt "solutions".

I edited this incorrectly. Fuck it.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Also, my daughter, though named after the daughter of a Caladanian Duke/Bene Gesserit abomination, has a name that sounds like a dead black pop-singer.

You named your daughter Michael Jackson?

Marvin Gaye...Jr.

[hooplala]

I have never had any real problem with weird names. What does piss me off is when people name their kids something that already exists, but spell it like idiots. There's no reason to spell "Cindy" like "Syndee." Just stop.

Why?

Because on the inside, I'm a crotchety old conservative asshole who just wants people to quit being so pointlessly weird.

My first name is Kris... got a lot of crap over it in my first few years of school.  After that, I stopped giving a shit what other people thought of my name.  Besides, my real name is Hoopla anyway.

I did notice about ten years ago that a lot of the people I knew were naming their kids things like Kaeden, and Calyn, and Kinsley, and Kingston.  I found them annoying, only because they all seemed to be variations of the same sound.  It gets confusing.

I want to name my kid Baba Ganoush someday.  Boy or girl.  I just like the way it sounds.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I do like unique names, but not unique spellings. It seems to advertise, "I had no really original ideas, but check out what I can do with a Y!"

Not that my wife and I have any particular room to talk. Our first kid is named Aiden, FFS. We just didn't know that approximately 94% of all male children born that year would receive some version of that name.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

I do like unique names, but not unique spellings. It seems to advertise, "I had no really original ideas, but check out what I can do with a Y!"

Not that my wife and I have any particular room to talk. Our first kid is named Aiden, FFS. We just didn't know that approximately 94% of all male children born that year would receive some version of that name.

I have a 13 year old relative called Aidan.

[hooplala]

I do like unique names, but not unique spellings. It seems to advertise, "I had no really original ideas, but check out what I can do with a Y!"

Not that my wife and I have any particular room to talk. Our first kid is named Aiden, FFS. We just didn't know that approximately 94% of all male children born that year would receive some version of that name.

In my case, blame hippie parents and Kris Kristofferson.  No idea what HIS parents excuse was.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have never had any real problem with weird names. What does piss me off is when people name their kids something that already exists, but spell it like idiots. There's no reason to spell "Cindy" like "Syndee." Just stop.

Why?

Because on the inside, I'm a crotchety old conservative asshole who just wants people to quit being so pointlessly weird.

My first name is Kris... got a lot of crap over it in my first few years of school.  After that, I stopped giving a shit what other people thought of my name.  Besides, my real name is Hoopla anyway.

I did notice about ten years ago that a lot of the people I knew were naming their kids things like Kaeden, and Calyn, and Kinsley, and Kingston.  I found them annoying, only because they all seemed to be variations of the same sound.  It gets confusing.

I want to name my kid Baba Ganoush someday.  Boy or girl.  I just like the way it sounds.

I wanted to name my youngest Walter but my husband said no.

I bet he regrets it, now.