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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29497 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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Naming conventions as class signifiers with implications for discussion of race, wealth, sexuality etc.

I had a form come across my desk today with a really bad name on it. Very stereotypically ghetto black, badly spelled, four middle names (one of which was “Mykween”). The name is too long for the name box on a federal form, so I had to file a supplemental sheet for it. Which got me thinking about why people name their kids stupid and stereotypical names, and what that means for the larger conversation about social divisions.

I live in a majority-minority city, I work with black people, we have lots of black customers etc. etc. There's more than one sort of black person, just as there is more than one sort of every group.

I look around my friend group and co-workers, not a one of them has a name like that. Eric, Dom (Dominic), Reggie (Reginald), Hezzie (Hezekiah), etc. Most of my black friends and co-workers have either very normal “white” names, or old fashioned/religious names. A few have african names, but that's because they're from Africa.

This is because the stereotypically “black” names are more specifically black underclass names. The working class' most serious social problem is distinguishing themselves from the underclass. So they name their kids very differently. And, in turn, if you see a black person with an african (or even better, fake african) name, a political portmanteau or a double-barreled last name, that's a middle- or upper-class thing. Hannah Nicole-Jones, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Edna Kane-Williams etc. We see similar patterns in other races, most Cletuses do not attend Harvard and the hyphenated last name is similarly an aspirational middle and upper class affectation. In addition, naming conventions change over time, so what is signalled by a name in one decade may signal something very different later. The name “Isis” dropped off pretty severely after about 2014.

This all brings to mind Scott's parable of the colored togas.

American underclass names aren't class-based. There's an extra causal link, personality. These names aren't passed down through a culture in the way that a fourth-generation Mexican may name her kid "Martin" because it works in both English and Spanish. These names are created anew with each baby. We don't see JaQuon Brown III or Braedyn Brown III.

The extra causal link is an impulsive, non-conformist personality. Making up a child's name out of the syllables of your culture and then spelling it strangely is a signal that you don't care to conform to social norms, you aren't interested in the long-term impact of the name you choose, and you want to stand out and seek attention.

Impulsive, non-conformist people usually don't fit well with capitalism, so they tend to drift into the underclass. Successful impulsive non-conformists exist though, most obviously in sports, music, and acting. Musicians, athletes, and actors give their kids strange names, regardless of social class.

If you meet someone with a non-conforming name, that indicates they have a non-conforming parent. The vast majority of the time, that means their parents are in the underclass, but there's a small possibility that they were named by a celebrity or Elon Musk.

A bit off-topic but my Irish aunt was married to a Frenchman for years and lives in Paris. When she was expecting her second child (a boy), she wanted to give him an Irish name, but it was also very important that the name be easy for a French person to pronounce. Some of the most popular Irish boys' names include names like "Cian" or "Cillian". The trouble is, these are pronounced with a hard K sound in Ireland, whereas French people would presumably read them as "SEE-an" or "SILL-ian". To get around this she considered using the alternate spelling "Killian" (which she didn't make up: it's a perfectly legitimate alternate spelling) which is far less ambiguous. The problem with that, she explained, is that boys' names beginning with the letter K in France (e.g. "Kevin") are generally associated with the banlieues, and she didn't want people assuming her son was a scumbag.

In the end she went with an English name I despise, but which is equally easy to pronounce in Ireland and France.

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I mean that might be the US stereotype, but there’s lots of poor or high crime suburbs in the USA that are worse than most of the urban core.

Yeah, bizarre isn't it? I think in the Anglophone countries, the "suburbs" are reflexively assumed to be quiet and peaceful, while the inner city is reflexively assumed to be a bit tougher and dodgier (e.g. "urban youth"). But I don't even have to go beyond my own country to find counter-examples: there are several suburbs of (for example) Dublin which are more dangerous and grim than most of the inner city, like Ballymun.

Ireland is an Anglophone nation as English is the primary language (and most people don't have a second language). Unlike India and South Africa, Ireland isn't part of the Commonwealth.

For a more aesthetically pleasing term you could call them "the Five Eyes" based on the intelligence alliance shared between the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

I knew a Killian growing up and it took me a lot longer than it should have to realize that Cillian was the same name and pronounced the same.

I am just learning that Killian’s Irish Red should be Cillian’s Irish Red

I feel like if I lived in France I'd give a son a name like Henry or Charles that works in both languages and seems status-neutral.

I'd vastly prefer "Henry" compared to the name she actually gave him. If Charles was ever in the running, she probably vetoed it on account of its association with the royal family.

on account of its association with the royal family

There's been just three Charleses, but eight Henries on the throne of England. Or ten Charleses and four Henries, if we're talking about France. Either way, both names are properly regal.

True, but would I be right in saying that King Charles is the only currently living British royal with the name Charles or Henry?

Prince Harry's baptismal name is Henry - this is a very common substitution among upper-class Brits and has been around for a very long time - "God for Harry, England and St George" is in Shakespeare's Henry V.

TIL.

Prince Harry's actual name is Prince Henry.

TIL.

This reminds me a bit of these two blog posts from Data Colada, a blog focused on statistics and the behavioral sciences. In those two posts, the bloggers point out a problem with some studies of racial discrimination. There are several studies which attempt to measure racial discrimination in hiring by sending out identical resumes some of which are made to look like they are sent by black applicants and some of which are made to look like they are sent by white applicants. Sometimes, the way that resumes are made to look like they are sent by black applicants is by using stereotypically black names. The blog posts I linked to points out that since some stereotypically black names are often seen as indicative of low socioeconomic status, this is not necessarily a good test for racial discrimination.

The blog posts I linked to points out that since some stereotypically black names are often seen as indicative of low socioeconomic status, this is not necessarily a good test for racial discrimination.

I wonder if they could try this with stereotypically yokel names. Make it Laquisha vs Daisy Mae or Peggy Sue, Jamal vs Hunter or Beau.

This is because the stereotypically “black” names are more specifically black underclass names.

"Football names" as the red tribe refers to them, are just generic underclass names which might be used by white trailer trash as often as by black ghetto dwellers. Actual stereotypically black names like Jamal or Latisha seem much more of a working class thing.

I just don’t think this is remotely true. Sure, I think when you refer to “football names” you’re talking about something like Jaxtyn, or Nevaeh, or Shaeleigh, etc. But I find it very hard to imagine working-class (as in, gainfully-employed and expecting their children to be the same) blacks would name a kid LeJarius, or Kwanteeshah, or Quondray, etc. Those just scream “rap sheet starts at 15 years old” to me and, I imagine, every prospective employer in America.

I mean that's kind of why I said Jamal and Latisha(likewise for Tyrone and LaShondra). I'd call LeJarius and Quondray and the like football names.

One set are relatively normal names that have strong ethnic connotations. The other are absolutely made up.

Cue the classic Key and Peele sketch about football names!

But your contention is that “football names” are used just as often by “white trailer trash” as they are by ghetto blacks. That simply isn’t true, though! The names I gave you are very very characteristically black; I would be shocked to learn that there is a single white person named Quondray in the entire United States. Ghetto black names are usually instantly recognizable as such, which meaningfully separates them from more racially-unspecified “football” (read: underclass) names. If I see “Jaxtyn Daniels” on a résumé, I’m not going to be able to confidently guess the race of the applicant in question. If I see “Rayquon Daniels”, I know immediately what I’m dealing with, and it’s gonna take everything in my power to resist ripping it up without a second thought.

I mean if I see "Jaxtyn Daniels" on a resume I'm not hiring her/him(underclass people can be very, very bad at spelling "Jackson", although this is almost certainly white if it's a male name) regardless of whether he/she is white, black, that one guy who turned himself blue by eating colloidal silver, whatever. It's a pretty red flag for having been underclass. The fact that Rayquon is a lot blacker than Jaxtyn is not actually relevant for my purposes because it's underclass and I don't want to deal with underclass people regardless of color, otherwise I'd open a payday loan place. That's ultimately the signal people care about.

You get a resume from a "Lashondra Brown". The resume is otherwise well-qualified- do you have the same reaction as to "LaQuondray Jefferson"? I certainly don't, although I'd use my best Southern drawl calling Lashondra to set up an interview.

The fact that Rayquon is a lot blacker than Jaxtyn is not actually relevant for my purposes because it's underclass and I don't want to deal with underclass people regardless of color, otherwise I'd open a payday loan place. That's ultimately the signal people care about.

So, this is a point of disagreement between you and me. I’m certainly no fan of the white lumpenproletariat; I know these people personally, I have some in my own family, and I have very little positive to say about them in general. However, I would absolutely have more confidence in a Braeden or a Kinslee than I would in a Rayquon or a Janisha. Not only because black underclass culture is just substantially worse than white underclass culture - especially in terms of whether or not I can expect the employee to reliably show up to work on time and to comprehend at least the basics of the assigned tasks - but also because at the end of the day at least I know that there is no possible way for Braeden to sue my company for discrimination when he eventually fucks up enough for me to fire him. I’ve been through the process of HR fielding a racial discrimination accusation made against the department I work for by a shitty black employee, and I would be loath to repeat it.

You get a resume from a "Lashondra Brown". The resume is otherwise well-qualified- do you have the same reaction as to "LaQuondray Jefferson"?

Lashondra is right on the borderline between “she might be a working-class Black whose parents wanted to give her a fancy-sounding black name” and “nobody in her family can read above a 7th-grade level.” Certainly there are very recognizably black names that don’t give any strong ghetto vibes - I think a lot of the Arabic-derived names can be quite charming - but anything with a “La” followed by a name that doesn’t usually have a “La” in front of it is setting off at least mild underclass alarms.

Ok, would you hire a Jamal Washington?

As for your contention of white/black lumpenproles, I'm not going to be a booster for either demographic, but, uh, there's a reason construction bosses prefer Jose to Bubba, and realistically Devontarius is not a typical name for a plaintiff in a racial discrimination suit, that's a PMC black woman thing.

there's a reason construction bosses prefer Jose to Bubba

This reason is that Jose is an illegal immigrant and hence does not have to be paid minimum wage, nor do any of the standard regulations need to be followed. Jose has far less bargaining power than Bubba does - he is in a more precarious position, not subject to the regulations and laws that make Bubba slightly more expensive, etc. Bubba would most likely be a better choice if the laws were actually being followed, but Jose not only doesn't have to even be paid minimum wage, he has no ability to seek redress if he's exploited or injured on the worksite. If faulty work gives Bubba a permanent injury, that's far more dangerous to the company than Jose getting one.

Real question, why do construction bosses prefer Jose to Bubba? Common non-class-associated Hispanic name vs highly lower-class associated white name?

Some parts of South America like to make up names as well. I've met plenty of "Juan Pablo"s but also a lot like "Gleidis", "Griselda", and stuff like this.

Griselda is an old and honorable name in Colombia

Seriously, Griselda is from German folklore; I would assume Germans brought it to South America. I don't know about Gleidis though.

I don't know about Gleidis though.

I think that's "Gladys" spelled phoentically, like "guáifai".

I've always wondered if these parents are familiar with black-names-on-resumes-get-fewer-callbacks popular science. And if they are, do they just not care? Or are they being spiteful? Or are they trying to pull a Boy Named Sue to give their kids more adversity to overcome?

People want their children to be like them, christians want to raise christians, muslims want to raise muslims. Trash wants to raise trash, both for the status and because the underclass social safety net is the government and your relatives. The more you have, the better off you are.

There's the obvious response that these particular people probably don't think about resumes. Or pop sci articles. Or gainful employment in general.

Underclass parents don't read popular science, they don't expect their kids to work those kinds of jobs, and they don't particularly care either. They're underclass in part because they don't expect to build careers, they hop from low-wage job to low-wage job.

Strongly doubt it occurs to them. Almost definitionally, people in underclasses work in jobs that do not ask for resumes. I did a lot of those jobs when I was younger, and met a lot of people who, I am pretty sure, went their whole lives and will die having never made a resume.

This is one non-HBD reason that is often given for why big gaps persist across generations. Those people never meet or interact with anyone who can model the actions that result in middle- or higher class lives.

I've never heard of a job that doesn't ask for a resumé. Even minimum wage jobs ask for resumés.

I have. Walk into your local restaurant with a "now hiring" sign and ask about it. You will not be asked to provide a resume unless you want to be a manager.

The way it worked for me was like this:

  • You go to your local staffing agency in the nearby strip mall. Every town I've ever lived in has several of them.
  • You fill out some forms they give you, which include what type of work you can do. For me this was just, "labor."
  • They call you in a day or two and say "XYZ Corp. needs some material handlers starting this Tuesday. They're paying $14.50 an hour and there's mandatory overtime. The shift is 2:30 to 11:00 PM. Stop by here before then and we'll give you your badge and show you the safety video."
  • You go and do that, and then on Tuesday you start working at XYZ Corp.

Depending on the company, they might hire you on to their own paper after 90 days or 6 months or whatever. Or you might stay on the staffing agency's paper indefinitely. I supported myself all through my early 20s doing jobs like this.

The actual work consisted of such tasks as:

  • Taking boxes from a conveyor belt and loading them into a truck.
  • Unloading things, from a truck, and placing them onto a conveyor belt.
  • Taking objects from a conveyor belt, and putting them into boxes.
  • Inspecting bottles of mouthwash on an assembly line, and doing weighing and cap tests once an hour.
  • Digging holes.
  • Watching a moving belt of electronics recycling stuff and picking out trash.
  • Assembling books-on-tape packages.
  • Loading big metal components (I genuinely don't know what they were) into this machine that would put a liquid coating on them.

I met many people whose entire working lives consisted of these jobs. I almost was one myself. I remember reading Slate Star Codex on my phone in the break rooms of these places, lol. There was never a resume involved. A lot of times these dudes also knew about casual work on the side. I still remember my buddy Luis, who every Saturday morning at like 5:00 AM would send me a text that was just an address and a work task. "8737 Maple Avenue. Fence posts. Eighty dollars." He would always be pissed off at me at our next actual work shift if I didn't show up.

I do concede that if, when you're at that level of the economic ladder, you decide to go and work for, e.g., Kroger or T.J. Maxx or some other significant corporation, yes, they may ask you for a resume. I actually remember consciously thinking about what the options were: you could work in a call center, you could go do fast food, you could work retail, or you could take a factory/labor job. I hated talking to people in a "customer service" kind of way, so for me the choice was always obvious.

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Working that shift is probably the thing I'm most nostalgic about from that phase of my life. I still went to bed right when I got home, and it was simply impossible to oversleep. And the sleep quality after eight hours of slinging boxes, it was magnificent. I've never slept so well since.

I had a period in my 20s during which I was doing temp jobs. I had two temp agencies: one that got me office work (once in a government office copying files; once in a charity call center) and another (the employment branch of Goodwill Industries, which also runs thrift stores) that was all blue collar (the one gig I can remember was moving furniture into a new hotel), and the guys I worked with through Goodwill's program never would fit in at (or wanted) the office jobs from the other agency, it was a completely different milieu.

I think they're online now, although I was applying to a maintenance job and not an in-store position.

I mean if you think about it, it's kinda weird to give your kid a name that is from the culture that enslaved both your ancestors and his. Probably more weird than to give your kid a name that is from your ancestors' culture or a name that is completely made up.

If American blacks thought this they'd have to adopt like Chinese names. Because ADOS were enslaved by Africans, Arabs, and then whites at the end of the line.

If American blacks thought this they'd have to adopt like Chinese names.

So Michael, Tim, Lisa, Amy? Should work out OK.

"Sinutab?" O I am laffin.

Where’s that graphic from? I’m pretty sure Newport is the name of many suburbs around the world, and Propecia and Sinutab are actual brand names for real medications (for finasteride and pseudoephedrine + paracetamol respectively). This seems too stupid to be true.

Where’s that graphic from?

The Onion. https://www.theonion.com/most-popular-u-s-baby-names-1819586596

Newport is the name of many suburbs around the world

They're menthol cigarettes stereotypically associated with blacks.

It's an ancient meme, I don't know the original source. And yes, it's a joke -- the Asian and white names are real but only half the black ones are. As for "Newport", I'm sure the reference is to the cigarette brand. "Dacron" is a brand name of polyester fiber.

A lot of American descendant of slave surnames are from slaveowners. Sometimes that of the family they were once slaves of, other times that of well-known slaveholding Presidents. (and non-slaveholding Presidents too, like Adams).

I have an extremely ordinary and common name, so much so that in my not-large high school graduating class there was a guy with the same (first and last) name as me. I have known people of multiple races with this same first + last name combination.

I often feel like this is kinda nice. Nobody can prejudge me very effectively from my name alone, they have to evaluate me on other traits. And I'm a little bit harder to Google, there are so many results which are not me.

Hyphenated last names (maiden and husband's) were in fashion among upper-middle-class white women in the eighties. It does seem that only black women do this nowadays. I don't know why this fell out of favor among whites.

I was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago and hung out with a friend I hadn't seen since college. He and his wife (both affluent, young California professionals working in media) just made up a new last name for the two of them. I didn't quite know how to feel about it. On the one hand, it's an elegant solution to the problem of infinitely expanding hyphenated names that doesn't require an asymmetrical sacrifice by only one party to the relationship. On the other hand, I had a (somewhat surprising) visceral disgust reaction at the idea of a man giving up his name. I guess my sense of filial piety and traditional gender roles are stronger than I thought.

As another data point, in my affluent blue bubble, hyphenated children's names are everywhere, partly because of the relatively large number of same-sex couples, but not remotely exclusively.

This includes mine, and while I have to admit that hyphenated names can be a mouthful (paving the way for endless jokes about fitting names on, e.g., swim caps), I love them for surfacing family history. I've always loved the extravagance of Spanish names for that reason, even if they are usually truncated for daily use.

Ideally we should all use Hispanic naming conventions- five first/middle names, two last names, you only pass on the father's and fathers have the absolute right to veto or change any name, but the kid just goes by "rambo" or "bandit" anyways regardless of what his name is on paper.

There's a secular cycle of naming conventions covered in Freakonomics about how the upper class adopts a certain set of names, the striving middle classes start using the name because it's "high class", but on a decade or so delay. Sometimes the working class picks it up, and the names just slide down the socioeconomic staircase, forever replaced by new ones at the top. So, for instance, it's important to know when a "Crystal" was born to get the signal.

I've got a hyphenated last name. We liked both of our last names and didn't want to get rid of either, so we kept them both.

I agree it seems uncommon though.

It seems more common in the UK (yes, there are ancient double or even triple barrelled names in the aristocracy, but the majority are recent maiden + husband ones), but the practice has now started to acquire a reputation as a bit trashy or performatively trying to appear of a higher class than you are (Hyacinth Bucket style), which is the biggest faux pas in English society.

I don't think it's primarily that though, it's that in the 1980s, when keeping one's maiden name as a woman was very radical and uncommon (in the Anglo world), the hyphenated name served as a sign of feminism while also making a concession to social mores, making sure you had the same last name as your children etc. So the man would be Mr Smith, his children would be Jane and John Smith, but his wife (and their mother) would be Mrs Miller-Smith, or something. Enough for the school teacher or the airport check in official not to raise their eyebrow or cause problems. If the mother worked, it also made things easier there, of course, so this practice was common in some upper-middle class professions like medicine or law.

Today, a combination of mass immigration (often from cultures with different family name practices) and advancing feminism means the 'middle ground' of the hyphenated name is no longer necessary for women. They can keep their original name and everyone knows what they mean. The kids usually still get the father's name, but this is less of an issue for mothers now that high divorce rates have been a thing for 30+ years and single motherhood is more common.

I think this is correct.

We are at the stage now where people named in the eighties are prime age adults, but I don't see the hyphenation as much anymore. I can tell you from growing up next to an Indiana trailer park in the eighties, hyphenated last names were for queers (in context, presumably, trend-chasing middle class strivers).

Yeah, I do still see it for some gay couples who have kids (because there's more of a debate about whose name the kids get). In general it's rare for children to get marital hyphenated names, I know a couple but it's often where the mother comes from a reputable family (like I know of a hyphenated maternal Rothschild, for example) or where the family are ultra-progressive. I've heard of cases where daughters get mom's name and sons get dad's too, there are more weird combinations today. But I think the paternal surname for children is still something that even most progressive men insist upon, and most women are willing to accept it.

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