Is this 'baby names' section a bit racist?

[Boulders]

On this board I've noticed quite a negative vibe against any name that is more typically used in Afro/Caribbean communities than white ones. The same goes for opinions on names originating from Asia. Islamic names are discredited too. Why is this?

Boulders, with regard to Danté, I suggested Donato (Italian) with Dante for short. (Ditto Donald).

Danté strikes me as a turtle name, not an afro-caribbean name.

I have seen people ask if someone is scottish/irish/welsh because of their name choices. I've also seen people stating that their family heritage is italian/french etc so they want a name that fits with that. I think if you are looking at a name that has a definite cultural element then it makes sense to state your connection to that culture.

TBH, if you're that bothered by other people's opinions of your choice of name that you have to ask on an anonymous forum where posters can't see you and know nothing about you, your heritage or your current life then you have to accept that people are going to make assumptions about you.

Seeing as MN is mainly british and therefore mainly white (as that's still the predominant race in the UK) then yes, it's understandable that people judge acording to those criteria.

I'd like to hear which Islamic names are discredited, as the OP says.

names disclamer.Yes read at your peril your euphoria inducing name is vomit inducing to someone else

People hear a name and react to it based on their own experience or image of the name. That's the best we can do on a message board.

If that name has completely different connotations within a different ethnic group, then a poster with knowledge of those different connotations can come forth and state their opinion as strongly as they like.

Doesn't make other posters racist.

Was it Sarah!?!?!?

I haven't seen Islamic names slagged off at all.

I do think there is a bit of an upper middle class bias to what people find acceptable.

But then I get out of my pram at non-Irish people wanting traditional Irish names they can neither say or spell!!!

I honestly never noticed racism in this section.

Maybe you are referring to the fact that some people just find it odd giving a very typical name to a child that has no relation whatsoever to it's origin.

For instance, I don't object to french flower names for girls but Italian boys names for non Italians sound just plain daft in my opinion.

However, I think you may very well have a valid point when you say "Interesting, so people just assume that only white women are having babies and using mn ".

I'm guilty as charged here. Most of the time I make that assumption. Ironically I'm from an ethnic/religious minority myself.

Saying Dante is a tad pretentious and that Donte is a crap silly misspelling is now racist? Oh what utter bollocks.

Very middle class, though, isn't it? Even I admit I am guilty of thinking 'Jordin? Paige? Mason? Urgh!' although I am not in the 'oh William and Alexander are just diviiiiiine dahling' category, yet!'

One interesting name that came up the other day was Farrah.

All most posters could think of was flicky hair and bell bottoms (me included). Then the poster mentioned ?her dh was arabic and this is an arabic name (please correct me if wrong as I cant remember exactly) and suddenly the name seemed less terrifyingly California 70's.

Is that racist?

As I mentioned previously, recent suggestions of mine were discredited, these suggestions included the popular Islamic boy's name Ilyas. Without trawling the board other Islamic names that have been discredited are Zarah & Layla.

I have read some semi-interesting opinions on here, maybe racism is not the cause of this negativity.

Farrah Fawcet is of Arabic decent I think..really threw that blonde pure American cliche she represented out of the water

Like all three of these those names (is that semi interesting? )

Is she? And I thought I knew all the Charlies Angels trivia!

Really?! I think Layla's a gorgeous name... that's now on my list in case small jellybean becomes DD1.

I think it's just down to personal taste, and maybe we tend to warm to names we are more familiar with?

In fairness, your names were criticised until you pointed out their origins and their link to your family, then you got more balanced views.

That's not people being racist, that's people seeing names that they haven't heard before and judging them from their (probably white british) viewpoint.

It's the same as Cali says with the welsh names, if you don't have a family link/background to make ther name make 'sense' then it's not the most sensible choice to make.

I think with something like baby name choices that you do need to state your cultural background if it's relevant because it does affect the way people view the name.

FWIW, all the Dantes I've known have been Italian American.

I really don't much care for Layla. Because of the crappy song by Eric Clapton, who when I last looked, was white.

I've never seen anything here which I thought was racist.

I'd agree that the consensus is often very middle-class, although I'd disagree with whoever said that any suggested name other than Ben, Oliver, Emily or Sophie would be shot down in flames. Those names are often decried (including by me, I admit it) because they're so tame and there may well be 3 in one class at school. What I take from this is that, to receive the MN seal of approval, a name must be unusual enough to be sure of being the only one in the class, but not so off-the-wall that one gets labelled poncetastic or trying too hard. (My own choice was apparently poncetastic).

To be frank, I don't think I could reliably spot which names are most popular amongst different minority ethnic groups. I had no idea about Dante, for example. My only view about names from different cultures is that I would feel uneasy plundering another culture for a name; I wouldn't have contemplated calling my daughter (say) Siobhan because we don't have any claim to Irish roots. But it's been said a zillion times before - we should all pick the names we want for our children and these threads are just so much hot air.

People are down on names associated with working class families. And that will include names associated with the black community. There is also a certain MN sniffiness to the trying too hard sort of name.

There was a thread - can't find it now - from a lady who wanted to call her son something I thought was dire - that would have led to massive teasing. She said she though it was tough cos he needed to be tough.

And I was thinking "how could she?!" when she came back and said she was black from california and therefore the name was fine. I didn't agree but she said that it was reason enough to have a "tough" name.

I don't think it's about racism - more that people tend to think "inside the box" for names - so choose something that fits both with their cutural heritage and the more usual names in their circle of friends.

It's not being racist about the name. It's imagining a "wanabee" parent calling their little lovey a "ghetto" name like Jamal when he's not from the imagined cultural background.

You wouldn't expect a muslim family to call their dcs Christine & Christopher; so you don't expect names like Jamal and Shaquille to belong to white people.

But everyhting is possible in a fight against tradtion!

And I think the OP has a point about imagining someones cultural background to be the same as your when you are "connecting" thru a website like MN.

So if the majority of people who post a profile picture are white-ish then it can be easy (but wrong) to assume all posters are also white-ish!

A lot of people's cultural reference pioint for 'Layla' will be Eric Crapton, hence will colour their view of the name.

People view names using their own personal references. For me, Farrah reminds me of a girl I was at school with. I'm far too young to have any Fawcett associations with it . Dante=inferno to me.