My niece, who is not only an urban redneck (and proud of it) but more than a tad racially bigoted, was trying to come up with names for her kid, and she wanted to use a fairly ordinary name, but spell it strangely. At first, I told her she’s condemning her kid to having to patiently having to spell his name over the phone, deal with misspellings, or pay to have it changed, but that didn’t dissuade her.
After hearing some of her more fanciful ideas, I said, “Do you want people to think he’s Black?” That got her to drop the idea.
Yeah, I knew a white girl in college with a name like that - she was frequently thought of as Black until someone saw her face or heard her non-ebonics standard American English accent on the phone. Best story was a comment her boyfriend’s grandmother made based on her name: “So why are you dating a Black girl?” I don’t know if the comment were racially motivated, but inter-racial dating was certainly unexpected, in any case. “Huh? What? No. She’s white.”
What was her name? It had a “La-” or a “Ja-” in front of it. LaTrisha? LaDonna? Jamilah? Something like that. “Latrina” was the first thing that came to mind, but I would have remembered it as a bathroom joke if it were Latrina.
rayannina over 13 years ago
Well, we can pretty much assume he won’t be naming the baby “Scott” …
paha_siga over 13 years ago
Naming a baby after anyone is a fine way to press on it your expectations before it can even think about what it’d want.
MisngNOLA over 13 years ago
Throckmorton Postelwaithe.
makemlaugh over 13 years ago
He could name it Chastity (boy or girl) to ensure he doesn’t become a grandfather.
margueritem over 13 years ago
Percival Juggernaut, Jr.
ponytail56 over 13 years ago
so funny it hurts
rayannina over 13 years ago
Margueritem wins the Internet! Again!
runar over 13 years ago
My niece, who is not only an urban redneck (and proud of it) but more than a tad racially bigoted, was trying to come up with names for her kid, and she wanted to use a fairly ordinary name, but spell it strangely. At first, I told her she’s condemning her kid to having to patiently having to spell his name over the phone, deal with misspellings, or pay to have it changed, but that didn’t dissuade her.
After hearing some of her more fanciful ideas, I said, “Do you want people to think he’s Black?” That got her to drop the idea.
Wilphart over 13 years ago
Yeah, I knew a white girl in college with a name like that - she was frequently thought of as Black until someone saw her face or heard her non-ebonics standard American English accent on the phone. Best story was a comment her boyfriend’s grandmother made based on her name: “So why are you dating a Black girl?” I don’t know if the comment were racially motivated, but inter-racial dating was certainly unexpected, in any case. “Huh? What? No. She’s white.”
What was her name? It had a “La-” or a “Ja-” in front of it. LaTrisha? LaDonna? Jamilah? Something like that. “Latrina” was the first thing that came to mind, but I would have remembered it as a bathroom joke if it were Latrina.
Crossfire905 Premium Member over 13 years ago
Related reading: “Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing” at notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/
Hilarious stuff, completely relevant to this topic, and absolutely not spam, I swear. My favorite from that bunch: SieQuasha.
Yeah. Someone actually named a kid SieQuasha, if you can believe that. Google’s auto-correct wonders whether I meant “squash.” :-D