Well, I certainly got some reactions to that silly little diatribe I wrote yesterday. I got so many comments, and I loved them! So here are some further thoughts on it.My objection, as I stated it yesterday, was to names that are not names, but which people seem to find it necessary to call their children. I was specifically pointing out those monikers that consist of random combinations of letters, but I have equal objection to a) real names that are spelled stupidly, and b) words that are not names but are used as names. The well-known celebrity whose baby's name is Apple is a good example of this one. Celebrities in general seem to be going through this name thing; isn't there someone who named his child, perhaps even a girl, Pilot Inspektor? I can't remember who, maybe Penn Gillette. Aw, come on.
I've seen every possible variation on Kaitlin, and there are several others like that. I might point out that I not only have a less than totally common name, I have the most unusual spelling for that name, and I have had to spell it for someone, at least once, almost every day of my adult life. Let me tell you, this gets to be a drag. I see it misspelled everywhere. And it's only made worse because there's someone else at work with the same unusual name but with the common spelling, So the office staff has no idea.
I did also mention ethnic names, but I raised no objection to them. If we can identify them as names, I'm good with that, although of course, the alleged name could well mean "Pilot Inspektor" in the other language. I don't have problems, as such, with ethnic or non-English names, but I do have -- quel surprise -- observations.
There are names that still have ethnic roots, but which are no longer especially thought of as such, and combine with last names of other ethnicity to create something completely American. These are my favorite names. I love seeing kids named Kevin Shapiro or Gina McCarthy.
I see many kids who were born in this country and maybe their parents were too, but who have preserved the ethnicity of their names: Giovanni Correlli, Siobhan McKenna. It looks to me like Giovanni and Siobhan may be annoying names for these kids to carry around, but hey, that's not an objection. Those families made that choice, like I made choices for my kids.
This was not the norm when I was a kid and in generations before; in fact, immigrant parents went out of their way to give their kids "American" names, sometimes direct translations and sometimes not. My father's name at birth was Jacob after a grandfather named Yakov. My mother was named Sarah at birth but became the oh-so-American Shirley before she even left the maternity ward.
These days, it depends. I don't think I have ever seen an Israeli kid, for example, who translated his or her name into English. Among the Russian kids, it varies, and I think it depends a lot on how old they were when they came here, and other factors, too. My next-door-neighbor is Vladimir in the school records but is known universally as Steve, and his baby sister, born here, is simply Michelle. Kids from Eastern Europe and the Middle Eastern countries rarely change their names, but every single kid from Korea or China is listed in school records as Joon Sung (Mary) Kim, or something similar. Every one of them wants to be called a traditional English name.
For what it's worth. My sister had a student once named Chiffonne. His mother had seen it on a cake box before he was born and liked it. He was a massive football player named Chiffonne. I don't think he cared for it much. People, you got to realize that one day that sweet little baby is going to walk and talk and interact with other human beings. Be kind.
