|
Well, racial discrimination is alive and well in
corporate America. That is according to a news report last week in which 5000 applications for equally qualified applicants were sent out for advertised positions. The applicants that had the “white” sounding names were responded too more often than those with “black” sounding names.
You have to keep in mind that all of their qualifications were identical only the names were different. So to put it in a nutshell Greg and Jill were called back more often than Ebony and Tyrone. In what we assume to be a more enlightened era in American history this is a pathetic comment on the state of race relations in our country.
What it also points to is what is fall out from parents getting creative with their child’s futures beginning with their names. I don’t know what some parents are thinking when they name their kids but there ought to be a law either preventing them from giving their kids goofy names. At very least make them give them an alternative that they can use latter when they discover the baggage that comes with going through life with a name like Dweezil or Moon Unit.
I would think if you have the urge to get creative do it with the middle name. If you feel so strongly compelled to name your child Uranus make it his or her middle name and give him or her a normal first name. Even in reverse it would work, just as long as the poor kid has somewhere to go. Uranus Paul, I am sure would be known as Paul in no time.
Nowhere is there a better place to view name giving gone berserk than in the professional sports community. When I hear some of the names of our current sports heroes I wonder what drugs their parents were experimenting with when their kids were born.
Because unlike the famous comedy routine by Abbot and Costello, Who’s on First, these are not nicknames. We are talking birth names like Kobe, Napoleon, Keshawn, Tikki, and Shaquille, come on folks did you have some sort of premonition that they would be involved in sports or were you just hoping that these names would toughen them up during childhood? You know that Boy Named Sue mentality; give them a name that will make tough or else.
What if Tikki Barber didn’t become a famous football player what would he do in life with the name Tikki? Maybe a Matre'd at a Polynesian restaurant or perhaps a professional wrestler? Giving a kid a name, that by most standards is odd, hangs an unnecessary stigma them. Being a kid with a normal name, or should I say a widely known name is tough enough, why give them one more hurdle to cross while growing up?
We all know how cruel most kids can be when they are in the grammar to high school ages. Giggles and taunts by classmates are the stuff that makes some kids snap as we have seen all to often in recent years. So why stack the deck against your own kids?
Then there are those parents out there that either can’t spell or are attempting to be original by changing the normal spelling. ‘No, that’s Rene with six E’s or that’s Rachel with a Y’. Do you
guys think you are setting your kids apart from the pack by doing this?
No, what you are doing is dooming them to a lifetime of correcting people on how to spell their name. From the first day of school until their tombstone is carved somebody will have to explain that Bob is spelled with four B’s. If your kid’s are going to set them selves apart from the rest let them do it on their own merits not your inability to fully think ahead.
The final group is a bit more bewildering in that they are adults naming themselves. Many new immigrants to this country in an attempt to fit in choose to adopt ‘American’ sounding first names. While this is very flattering and is greatly appreciated by all of us who would never be able to wrap our English speaking tongues around your given name, please do a little research first.
I have seen and heard some really bewildering choices from using S’s on the end of names like Jacksons to picking names that haven’t been in vogue for 100 years like Percy and Hilda. And while Dreyer’s makes a decent ice cream it makes a rather bizarre first name. You may want to ask around first before choosing.
Sometimes our names fit from square one and sometimes we grow into them. But parents let’s use a little forethought so it’s not something we squirm in.
|
