Satire: Most Popular U.S. Baby Names [for Black, White and Asian students in U.S.]

The Onion ^ | December 25, 2002 issue | The Onion Staff

[IowaHawk]

What is with naming kids after Indian tribes?

I associate Indian tribe names with trailer trash bikers... they have this big WalMart/truck stop/black velvet painting mysticism thing.

If you're gonna name a kid after an Indian tribe, I kinda like 'Hopi' or 'Ute' or 'Flat Head'.

[TontoKowalski]

What an interesting post! Particularly the part about the classical Greek names.

I ask the following question from a standpoint of "not knowing, but wondering" (and because your post indicates that you've invested some time in researching the names) and not from some other motive to stir up a stink:

Did slaveowners name the children of slaves, or were the slaves themselves allowed to choose the name?

[summer]

THAT is an excellent question! I am curious about that as well.

[FUMETTI]

Hi there!

Yes, for the most part slaveowners gave them their names, and surnames, so blacks tracing their ancestry usually find out that their surname was that of their last slaveowner before freedom (that was the case for Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey).

When blacks were free, they were frequently shedding their classical names and adopting names of heroes like Washington, Lincoln, and abolitionists like Lloyd and such.

Occasionally black slaveowner surnames were dropped. Case in point was Frederick Douglass. He was born Frederick Bailey but became Douglass upon his escape to Rochester NY.

[FUMETTI]

"I associate Indian tribe names with trailer trash bikers... they have this big WalMart/truck stop/black velvet painting mysticism thing."

LOL!!! I agree...I expect the boy to have a rat tail (the sureset sign of being trailer trash) when they have the name Dakota.

I also hate the name Cody. I guess it was Kathy Lee Gifford who encouraged that feeling. (smile)

[FUMETTI]

Summer, I think they went to New Wave heaven along with the late Joe Strummer, sadly.

[sneakypete]

.I heard of one white family that named their kids after Fords...F-150, F-250 and Dooley.

ALL da wimmin folks who come into close personal contact with me call me "Super Duty".

[archy]

It turns out that "Camerone" is the French corruption of the town's real name which was "Cameron" meaning "Shrimp-(singular)"

The French spelling would have been the approximate French transliteration of the name that would have offered the most common pronunciation, I would expect.

Unless named for someone whose name was derived from a seafood-related activity, I wouldn't think a village would have had the name of a shrimp in the singular usage, unless there's an idiomatic reference either similar to or possibly very different from the one in English. It was a very small village.

That little place will never be forgotten so long as France has a Legion Entrangere. Legio Patria Nostra.

[Kenny Bunk]

My sons Tyler and Madison; my daughters Tiffany and Ashley: all have been having trouble fitting into the small village in Macedonia where we live. The Albanian kids at their school just tease them unmercifully.

I have been thinking of changing their handles to Cameron, McKenzie, Spencer, and Farquhar. Do you think this will help them adjust?

Did you know that in Germany and France, you cannot give a kid a weird name ... by law?

[summer]

I think you're right. That was such a shock about Joe Strummer - and then, Herb Ritts, the celeb photographer, who also died, at age 50 like Joe Strummer, during the same week.

[foreverfree]

"Cameron" ought to be deleted with increasing knowledge of Spanish...it is the Spanish word for "shrimp."

Tell that to "Buck" Williams, one of the heroes of the LaHaye/Jenkins "Left Behind" novels. His real first name is Cameron.

foreverfree

[sneakypete]

Reminds me of the old Johnny Cash song, "A Boy Named Sue."

I was in the army with a man named "Vicky",or maybe "Vickie". I have no idea why he didn't change his name.

[livius]

I don't know about slave times, but one of the things that poor rural blacks in the South (and probably elsewhere) sometimes did was to ask the doctors at the clinics to name their babies. Mencken, in his famous book, The American Language, tells a horrible story about (white) doctors who gave black babies names such as Urea or other medical terms, and one truly terrible case in which the child was named "Positive Wasserman." It's hard to imagine such cruelty being practiced upon poor, illiterate and trusting folk, and I hope these doctors either repented later or are now suffering the unpleasant recompense for their deeds, which they probably thought very funny at the time.

[summer]

Did you know that in Germany and France, you cannot give a kid a weird name ... by law?

No, I did not know that. Is there actually such a law in those countries?

[IowaHawk]

In all honesty, I gave my young son what many think is a weird name...

Chester.

Obviously you don't see many 7-year old Chesters running around, but he came by it honestly. Chet was named after his great grandfather.

I like it because it's a good, decent, hardworking American name; think of guitarist Chet Atkins, jazz great Chet Baker, newsman Chet Huntley, President Chester Alan Arthur; not to mention athletes Chet Lemon, Chester Taylor and Chester McGlockton.

[PallMal]

What's your theory on the white names listed

It could be the pop-culture mindset (as one other poster pointed out).

[TontoKowalski]

Yes, for the most part slaveowners gave them their names, and surnames, so blacks tracing their ancestry usually find out that their surname was that of their last slaveowner before freedom (that was the case for Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey).

I think at some level I must have known about the surnames. I grew up in the South, and there were a lot of us sharing my surname...both black and white. Heritage and lineage mean so much to my family...I can't imagine what it would be like to trace your family tree and find that your last name is the name of the last man to own your family.

However, I didn't know that the Christian names were chosen by the slaveowner, and not the parents. That almost seems as sad as having to adopt the surname.

I am assuming you are a black gentleman who has done some geneology. Are there resources available that allow most black Americans to trace their lines back further than the 1850's/60's? I'm guessing that the slaveowners records would be the most frequent source of information, and that they would be sketchy, but I don't know that. Were census records kept of slaves, other than just their numbers?

[Kenny Bunk]

Da "UTE" of America done went to hell. I Shirley would not name my Kidd that!

[FUMETTI]

Hi, I am actually white of Italian, Spanish, Irish, English, Scottish and French Canadian ancestry. I have always been interested in the etomology of names, especially in the United States.

I do a lot of genealogy, and much of my clientele is black, so I had to study up on surnames and if you read the issue of the National Genealogical Society Magazine about 1989 there is an article on Bill Cosby's roots and his owners were Virginian slaveowners named Cosby (or Causby).

By the way, Algore's ancestors were slaveowners and that was interesting considering he tried to paint Bush as a racist.

[sneakypete]

I've always wondered if there really was a Richard Weed or a Michael Hunt running around out there.

The guy you really want to feel sorry for is the real-life shoe salesman named Al Bundy. With a population as large as the US,you know there has to be a real one out there somewhere.