I’ve been noticing an “exciting” new trend in baby naming … certain people (mostly of non-Caucasian background) are going to extremes to name their child something unique (but often ridiculous) and differentiate them from the legions of ethnic brothers and sisters.
This happens most with Chinese/Chinese hybrids. I’m thinking the parents have somewhat good intentions – so their child is not wrongly arrested for suspicion of multiple homicide by accident (ex. if the poor child is named Mike Lee or Esther Kim along with a thousand others in the same state can you really blame the police when they come ‘a knockin?).
That, I get. It’s like having a commonly misspelled or misinterpreted domain name (ex. whitehouse.com) on the interwebs – a real issue for the innocent…but a boon in business for the porn sites who get free (albeit unintended) traffic.
The problem is that some parents forget that their children actually have to live with their monikers in the real world where other people are not named after Biblical assassins or random Pagan deities who may legitimately have noble honorable names. But, if they’re so concerned with your child becoming a success by carefully planning out their school careers from nursery to grad school then why mark them as heretics or freaks with horrible names that even white parents wouldn’t consider.
Do you really think that your child will not grow into a school shooter if you name them Ebeneezer Chan? Yes they may have a strong, historical name that you choose because of its meaning but that’s only half the battle (as they say in GI Joe…see Zartan reference below). The other half that’s equally important (or even more important since no one bothers to Google kids’ names prior to beating them for their lunch money) is the contextual, sociological, even aesthetic aspect of their name.
There was a creepy trend I noticed back in college and even to this day (at an anonymous state school across from San Francisco is all I’ll reveal) that for some reason some of people I hung out with were named after/or were VERY similar to streets in San Francisco with a high concentration of first generation Chinese immigrants (Lawton, Filbert, Clement, Gilbert, Grant, Tyler, Martin Luther King Jr….) ok the last one I threw in there just to see if you were still paying attention but you get the gist. After some research those names were probably Romanizations of their phonetically similar Chinese names.
Today it’s pretty bad (particularly my generation who has NO excuse as they were brought up in America with popular culture and full awareness of how your designation can affect your future). If you’ve watched the very interesting Freakonomics movie (based on the books by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt) you’ll see how names that sound African American do actually detract from some employers’ willingness to interview and hire qualified candidates. So there’s a valid reason to choose a white-sounding first name for your children (BUT there’s also not as much negative connotation for “normal” American names if you already have an Asian last name). It actually sounds like hubris or ego on the parents’ part than the intended well being of their children.
Some names that I strongly fear will be used in the next few years and will definitely result in self-confidence issues and many contusions:
- Bethany
- Brad/Chad/Chatsworth
- Bryce
- Engelbert - good for composers or crooners…not for kids in this century
- Shlomo - great meaning but bad name
- Zackariah
Some alternative (non-dorky and all around much better than what I’ve been seeing in real life so far) names for 3rd gen+ ethnic children:
