Trivia tidbit: Most popular baby names by income and race

Willisms ^ | unknown | unknown

[Phantom Lord]

Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 23 -- Baby Names.

BABY NAMES:

Girls, by income-

Most Popular High-End White Girl Names in the 1990s

1. Alexandra
2. Lauren
3. Katherine
4. Madison
5. Rachel

Most Popular Low-End White Girl Names in the 1990s

1. Amber
2. Heather
3. Kayla
4. Stephanie
5. Alyssa

Boys, by income-

Most Popular High-End White Boy Names

1. Benjamin
2. Samuel
3. Jonathan
4. Alexander
5. Andrew

Most Popular Low-End White Boy Names

1. Cody
2. Brandon
3. Anthony
4. Justin
5. Robert

WHITEST AND BLACKEST GIRL NAMES-

The 20 Whitest Girl Names

1. Molly
2. Amy
3. Claire
4. Emily
5. Katie
6. Madeline
7. Katelyn
8. Emma
9. Abigail
10. Carly
11. Jenna
12. Heather
13. Katherine
14. Caitlin
15. Kaitlin
16. Holly
17. Allison
18. Kaitlyn
19. Hannah
20. Kathryn

The 20 Blackest Girl Names

1. Imani
2. Ebony
3. Shanice
4. Aaliyah
5. Precious
6. Nia
7. Deja
8. Diamond
9. Asia
10. Aliyah
11. Jada
12. Tierra
13. Tiara
14. Kiara
15. Jazmine
16. Jasmin
17. Jazmin
18. Jasmine
19. Alexus
20. Raven

WHITEST AND BLACKEST BOY NAMES-

The 20 Whitest Boy Names

1. Jake
2. Connor
3. Tanner
4. Wyatt
5. Cody
6. Dustin
7. Luke
8. Jack
9. Scott
10. Logan
11. Cole
12. Lucas
13. Bradley
14. Jacob
15. Garrett
16. Dylan
17. Maxwell
18. Hunter
19. Brett
20. Colin

The 20 Blackest Boy Names

1. DeShawn
2. DeAndre
3. Marquis
4. Darnell
5. Terrell
6. Malik
7. Trevon
8. Tyrone
9. Willie
10. Dominique
11. Demetrius
12. Reginald
13. Jamal
14. Maurice
15. Jalen
16. Darius
17. Xavier
18. Terrance
19. Andre
20. Darryl

MOST POPULAR RACE-NEUTRAL NAMES-

Most Popular Girl Crossover Names

1. Andrea
2. Whitney
3. Alicia
4. Kendra
5. Alexandria
6. Natasha
7. Tiffany
8. Brittany
9. Amber
10. Talia
11. Erika
12. Brianna
13. Ariel
14. Gabrielle
15. Veronica
16. Alana
17. Kyra
18. Ashley
19. Breanna
20. Erica

Most Popular Boy Crossover Names

1. Vincent
2. George
3. Troy
4. Christian
5. Martin
6. Corey
7. Brandon
8. Eric
9. Craig
10. Frank
11. Cameron
12. Shawn
13. Micah
14. Gregory
15. Nathaniel
16. Marc
17. Aaron
18. Dominic
19. Theodore
20. Isaac

[Bar-Face]

Ledgend has it that a farmer in east Texas named Hogg named his two daughters, IMA and SHEESA. I don't know if it is true, but it should be.

[Phantom Lord]

That is absolutely 100% true. Well, the part about Ima is.

She was the daughter of Texas Gov. James Stephen Hogg

Sheesa is not true. She had 3 brothers, no sisters.

[dsc]

"Blanche was my grandmother's name - and she wasn't southern."

God's bodkins, unauthorized usage of a Southern name.

Y'all.

[lentulusgracchus]

My wife's response was "Whatever..." Tane reported my wife's racist attitude to the HR department and it was quite a stink.

Did the HR Dept. side with the pretending-to-be-offended person of color who was engaging in "white management"?

If so, did they explain

a) what process of special mentation would inform the person seeing this name for the first time that

i) it was to be pronounced as it was and

ii) the owner was black and likely to get in a snit if a person lacking the proper color attributes got it wrong, and

b) by what magical magisterium HR felt it could manage your wife's "attitude" and sensitization from their own ridiculously supine position on the floor?

Inquiring minds want to know.

An article in our local paper went into these "special" names at some length one day, explaining how the mothers of these persons attach these names to them with the explicit intention of "forcing" the world of authority to "pay attention" to the child as an "individual". Their operative assumption being, apparently, that if they didn't do this, that persons encountering the child in future would naturally not give them any attention at all otherwise. Twisted, but there it is.

Talk about setting kids up to fail.

[lentulusgracchus]

You know, I do like Rose alot. I think it's a very pretty underused named.

I had an aunt named Rose. Her middle name was Mary. Ours is an Irish family, and there was a family tradition (Irish? local? familial?) of giving the first girl in the new generation the name "Mary" -- so Rose was "Rose Mary". And I had wondered why, when my sister was born, she was also given the name "Mary" -- it was worked into the string somewhere -- along with the one she was more usually called. Mystery solved, when I finally heard about the tradition from another aunt who broke it when she named her firstborn girl something else that didn't go with Mary very well. She broke with tradition out of consideration for her girl, knowing that other kids would take two rhyming names and try to make mean little singsong taunts out of them if afforded the opportunity.

[SoothingDave]

What makes name a Christian name? I've always heard that referred to as any first name.

It is custom in Europe to refer to the first name as the "Christian" name, since it is the one given at Baptism.

But, what was meant here by "Christian" name is a little more exact. Basically meaning names found in the Bible, or names of famous saints. In other words, traditional names passed down through the common Christian heritage.

By naming a child, you wish to impart some imprint on him. To try to make some character of the saint part of your child.

Just making up a name, or using one from a commercial product, is to make a mockery of this.

SD

[Andy from Chapel Hill]

The whole episode was brief. The HR department conceded that the name was spelled such that several pronunciations were possible. They did ask my wife to refrain from saying "whatever..." again, which she acknowledged was not consistent with her normal professional behavior.

Tane was told that she could file a formal, written and sworn complaint which would be considered at higher levels and that the forms were located at the administration building. Nothing was ever filed.

Tane, who was not very good at coming into the hospital on schedule, never showed up again. My wife speculates that she simply went to another free clinic in downtown Baltimore.

Anyway, we moved to Chapel Hill, NC and have not looked back.

[lentulusgracchus]

Texans take the bite out of references to Ima Hogg by referring to her in conversation as "Miss Ima". She was a very nice person, extremely wealthy and philanthropic, and a major benefactress of Houston. Her old home is now a public place, and a showcase dedicated to her memory.

[lentulusgracchus]

By naming a child, you wish to impart some imprint on him. To try to make some character of the saint part of your child.

That was the reasoning I heard as a boy, that was common in religious families, ergo among almost all Irish families, since the women especially were religiously observant.

Just making up a name, or using one from a commercial product, is to make a mockery of this.

The manipulative naming motive I mentioned above would certainly seem to qualify as mockery. However, there are some unconventional names that are part of frontier tradition. Some rural families got into the habit of giving children made-up "family names" (as they are called) and passing them along from generation to generation. Examples given in a newspaper article I saw years ago were "Lebus" and "Orem". I personally know a young woman named "Thamer", who went by a nickname at the office rather than have to explain her unusual name to people. She did this for several years, then changed her mind and let everyone know to call her by her given name, which we do now.

Another example is the former NFL Oilers football coach O.A. "Bum" Phillips, father of Wade, also an NFL coach. "Bum" was the old man's nick, his given name being Oail, a "family name".

[denydenydeny]

The 20 Blackest Boy Names

6. Malik

13. Jamal

This is on the order of Jewish parents naming their kids "Siegfried" or "Brunnhilde."

[SoothingDave]

However, there are some unconventional names that are part of frontier tradition. Some rural families got into the habit of giving children made-up "family names" (as they are called) and passing them along from generation to generation. Examples given in a newspaper article I saw years ago were "Lebus" and "Orem".

I suspect the names may have been surnames (last names) of other relatives, pressed into service as first or middle names. Nothing wrong with that. Again, the idea is to both honor the descendent and to try to imprint on the character of the child. "Prescott" is not a normal Christian saint name, but it was the last name of a Bush family patriarch. It's the middle name of George P Bush.

SD

[lentulusgracchus]

After his pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm Little, a.k.a. Malcolm "X", legally changed his name. I believe his new name was El Hajji (pilgrimage accomplished) Malik el-Shabazz. His wife still goes by Betty Shabazz.

[lentulusgracchus]

I suspect the names may have been surnames (last names) of other relatives, pressed into service as first or middle names.

No, in the case of these country whites, the names were actually confected out of whole cloth, chosen for the way they sounded or for similar reasons, created as "one-off" namings for an individual child. One can speculate as to why they did this, but it is not uncommon in some parts of the rural South to encounter this sort of naming "convention" (or unconvention, if you will). It's seen in Texas; I don't know about other states, but suspect it's a Scots-Irish thing and would not be surprised to hear it's found in states that originally supplied Scots-Irish settlers to Texas: Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, northern Louisiana, the North Carolina piedmont and mountain counties, western Virginia.

Using last names of favored ancestors or friends of the family is more a feature of the "deferential society" of the Atlantic slope, especially among people of English backgrounds. Yankee brahmins like the Bushes would certainly be among that number.

[denydenydeny]

My point was that if slavery was the "Black Holocaust," a chief responsibility must go to the Arabs, who almost exclusively maintained the sub-Saharan African slave trade for centuries, and still practice it today. Black people who name their kids "Malik" or "Jamal" are honoring those who enslaved their ancestral homeland.

[abigailsmybaby]

I remember it. It's one of two of those shows that stick out in my mind. The other one is the one with the walnuts.

Neither of my kids' names are on the lists: Heidi and Timothy.

[Conservababe]

My mother was a public health RN in a rural parish in Louisiana in the sixties. It was part of her job to visit mothers who had delivered babies at home. She checked the babies and helped the mothers to fill out the necessary forms to obtain a birth certificate. On one visit, she tried to talk a mother out of naming her infant girl "Placenta Privia" because the mom had heard the midwife mention the word. Now there is a woman in the world named just that, if she hasn't changed her name.

My great mother named her girls Virginia, Louise, Florida, Carolina and Georgia. She named her only son Tex.

[abigailsmybaby]

Criminy! If I was her I would have been at the courthouse on the day I turned 18, getting my named changed.

WOW! What a great idea your mom had. I never would have thought of that approach.

[ThreeYearLurker]

She does not still go by the name Betty Shabazz, at least she did until she was murdered by her granddaughter five years ago or so.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

What's wrong with Christian names?

Well, first very few of these names are made up.

Second if by Christian you mean Bible there is rather a dearth of female names. So you end up with girls named Keren-Happuch. (no, I am not joking)

Third not all are Christian.

[samiam1972]

Or as my cousin named her daughter...Katelynn...yet another spelling!