American names = bad?

[thecaroline]

Hello, everyone,

I'm not a mom or pregnant, just very interested in names. I've been reading here for a while and am a regular on another name website, and I've noticed that lots of posters here seem to feel a certain disdain for "American" sounding names. I'm curious about this, partly because I'm American, and partly because I don't understand the categorization.

So, what are these American names you speak of? And I'm wondering if all "American-sounding names" are inherently tacky to the British/Irish ear, or... what do you think? Where do "Australian sounding names" fit into this equation?

I have a feeling that this category of names is what a good number of Americans would label "tacky" or "trendy"... or at least I hope so.

Thanks, y'all (I might as well play up my Americanness, right?)

:)

I think you said on another thread you were thinking about Phoebe. I love that name. Can't remember what some of your boy names were.

If we had had another DD she would have been Margaret/Maggie.

My DD2s name has come up on this thread as an American name (it's not though) - if we'd had a boy it would have been Franklin which seems extremely appropriate

Cheerful - Francis and Eleanor?

Eleanor is out but I love Frances for a girl! It was in the running last time.

Phoebe is lovely. I liked that too. My dd is nearly a teenager now. But that was on the list! Frances is lovely too. I prfer it to Francesca.

Frances is great, lots of good nicknames.

Cheerful - I love Frances, but DH isn't keen on it as a first name, so it's one of DD3's (Elisabeth) middle names.

I would have loved Margaret as a first name as well, but we have a Mary, and DH didn't want to duplicate any initial letters.

It's Taft, isn't it, TeWi? Or possibly Van Buren...

Obviously it's Taft!

This thread has made me think of this very imposing friend of my grandmother's (think a US Southern version of Violet, Lady Grantham). She had very conservative ideas about naming children and became quite alarmed that her grandchildren might acquire one of the trendier names. She told my grandmother: "I don't think anyone has any business naming their children a name that Queen Victoria would not have considered for her children. . . with the possible exception of Leopold."

I have a Frances. I chose it because all the Franceses I ever heard of were good strong women (& my DD - she's nearly 30 - is too )

That's amazing Scone :o

This thread has made me think of this very imposing friend of my grandmother's (think a US Southern version of Violet, Lady Grantham). She had very conservative ideas about naming children and became quite alarmed that her grandchildren might acquire one of the trendier names. She told my grandmother: "I don't think anyone has any business naming their children a name that Queen Victoria would not have considered for her children. . . with the possible exception of Leopold."

Oh, I love this! Old Southern ladies can be downright scary. My grandmother is more Joan Rivers than Lady Grantham, but she is also an old Southern woman with lots of opinions on names. I mentioned Audrey to her once and she was downright appalled.

Frazzled --

It was done by blatant discrimination in employment ('No Irish Need Apply') and rental housing. The way to get on was to stick together, all go to the same RC church, set up mutual aid societies within the RC church framework, send children to the RC parish school, socialise through the parish, get job leads from fellow parishioners and neighbours, and introductions for newcomers to employers or foremen by the same means. Jews and Italians did the same in their own religious communities (the Italian and Irish Catholics didn't mix).

Cities offered opportunities for the unskilled in industries like meatpacking (Chicago, Duluth, Green Bay, Omaha, Kansas City) and digging for massive building and civil engineering projects (New York, Chicago) and digging was needed for canal and railroad construction (so you find many little towns along the route of the Northern Pacific railroad or the Erie Canal, etc., with a St Patrick's church and school where Irish navvies reached the end of the line).

Gradually the Irish either started or took over labour unions in cities, and acquired political power by means of the same communal political action that they had been used to in Ireland before the Famine under Daniel O'Connell and afterwards with the Land League. Organised labour and the organised and disciplined Irish wards in cities could guarantee a turnout and hence the rise of Tammany and (Democratic) machine politics in Chicago and Kansas City and other places. Machines worked well for the Irish and their allies but kept all others out of city jobs including police and fire department jobs, and unions -- all the jobs that made entry into the middle class/non-manual labour class possible, and came with a pension.

TeWi -- Madison may appeal because one of the possible NNs is Maddy. It's therefore seen as a sort of variant of Madeleine and not entirely a masculine name.

I think Tortoise is also right about the teen girls who saw Splash now using the name for their children. (I suspect the popularity of Grease back in the late 70s has something to do with the popularity of Olivia.)

Kennedy and Cassidy both end in the -ie sound, and are therefore acceptable as girl names. Same goes for Riley.

I have a DD with middle name Frances too .

I was thinking that earlier Math, I wondered if the splash writers picked it for that reason and fashion followed suit.

On the other hand with boys names it seems more likely that independently different families decided they would like to name their child after a president and then make their decision from there.

Patriotic parents of girls either have to really break the mold, or go for the more feminine options, America is a girl's name for example, possibly as countries are generally depicted as female?!

I'm wandering off on a tangent here, but I do find it all very interesting.

Thanks for the Irish facts, I see why you find it sad that more traditional names didn't last.

I think the Irish immigrant experience was a bit different in the South where Irish immigrants were more accepted in mainstream society for a variety of cultural and social reasons and more assimilation occurred at an earlier time than in other parts of the country. Having said that, there were obviously costs involved: my great-great-grandfather dropped the O from his name (although it remained a very identifiable Irish surname) and his son (Francis, btw), my great-grandfather, had to convert to a Protestant denomination in order to marry my very WASP grandmother, whose family was a step or two higher on the social ladder.

Oops, I meant my very WASP great-grandmother. My grandmother was their daughter.

Being immigrant stock (if my family likes doing anything, it's moving to a different country) I think sometimes, for the first generation, they aren't actually bothered about history and culture, they just want to go somewhere they can make a decent living and get on with things.

It's as the decades go on and things are forgotten that it starts to seem more important. Which is awkward if your parents can't remember or don't know.

Life is a lot easier for me who can sneakily Google facts I have forgotten when my children ask, than my parents who had to own up or bluff... I have been pondering this since this thread started I have to admit, and I do wonder if some of these names are actually white lies handed down.

I think it depended on what part of the South, and what foot you dug with. Certain cities became Irishised and Germanised almost overnight (New Orleans and St Louis), but other places in the South were very jealous of wasp privilege and the rural south was almost completely protestant. Irish protestants from Ulster were acceptable in the South but not the potato Irish. The second wave Klan targeted Catholic churches and institutions such as Notre Dame University.

TeWi, I have a suspicion that the parents of boys and girls who bear the names of presidents did not choose the names based on their knowledge of American history.

"And as for Irish travellers, racism towards them is absolutely acceptable to most British people. Do you think there would be a television programme made, called, "My Big Fat Jamaican wedding"?"

Hmmm, I don't think the anti-Irish traveller sentiment is much to do with "anti-Irish sentiment." Irish travellers are viewed even more negatively in Ireland than they are in England/Scotland/Wales.

I have to say, I do detest the practice of giving traditionally-boys' names to girls (common in America, though not exclusively American)

It raises my hackles for a number of reasons: one being that it is a generally sexist practice (how often do you hear of parents choosing to call their son "Margaret" or something?), another being that it makes life very difficult for men/boys who already have that name. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's a bit of a dickhead thing to do.

I think patriotism probably does play a role for a lot of parents actually, given that Americans are vastly more open about wanting their children to succeed and pride in their country.

I don't think it's dickish at all to give a girl a boy's name, if male people with the name suddenly start getting flack for having a unisex or girl's name then there is something massively wrong with our society not the people who chose that name for their girl.

Yes, but I'm pretty sure that most of the people who give their daughter's boys' names don't call their sons Elizabeth, KWIM? If they really did believe in GenderFreedom as a sort of statement, that's what they would do.

No, that isn't what someone who believes in gender equality would do in an unequal society - if giving your child of either gender an obviously female name puts them at a disadvantage you might well consider giving all your children male or unisex names purely for that reason. I know families who have.

If you lived somewhere with complete equality then there wouldn't be any naming stereotypes, all names would be unisex, so yes you could easily use what is currently thought of as a 'girl' name for a boy.