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?

We had two Olwyns living in our street. One had OCD and was fanatically clean and the other had a house that stank to high heaven.

there were known and Clean Olwyn and Dirty Olwyn

I'm a Ms as well, but was trying to save on the typing.

bicnod - Sarah Cox has now named her ds the same as mine, having named her dd the same as mine - I felt a little miffed before I saw that both were now in the top 100 most popular baby names - so much for giving my dc lovely unusual names

choccypig-
Not really no,

because there are so many interesting Christian names to choose from - just look through posts for inspiration.

My point is that in Islamic culture for example, there are often a very limited remit of names. i dont know why this is the case. Maybe the names have religious significance, I dont know.

An islamic person probably likes it becausse it is culturally relevant. but I dont have too like it and it is not culturally relevant to me. I am grateful for a wider choice thats all.

i like the name dante fwiw and would never have thought of it as black, american maybe, black no.

i dont take much notice of the baby name threads tbh. i occasionaly post on them but light heartedly. if you like a name use it if not dont.

i do identify some names as belonging to certain cultures but would never not use a name because of that. i wanted anja for my dd but dh axed it as according to him it is a foriegn name and we are not foriegn. he believes that you should use names that are culturally revelant to you. he says that he has been brought up this way so im not sure where he thinks the niamh comes from as none of his family are irish

I love the way the welsh do that. In my dads village, everyone has their occupation added to their surname. Evan the bread...

This is good, because you know which Dai Jones, is which.

we have Evan Evans and William Williams, in our family. This practice is a part of welsh culture. When there are too many with the same name though, they start on the nicknames to help out.

If you watch Ivor the engine DvD you see this too good effect.

Are there any MNetter who can shed light on to Bandie's claim that there are a limited remit of Islamic names? I cannot say that I have noticed. Ok, there were 2 boys in my year at school called Mohammed, but there were also 2 Grahams and 3 Samanthas.

I agree that if you post on here about wanting to call your DD Niahm or Deirdre and then ask how to pronounce it that you are likely to get a negative response. As Cali says, if you have to ask how to pronounce it, then you should walk away from the name.

Not racist, just good sense.

Bandie
You have just posted about the limited Islamic names, and your next post is about Jones,Evans, Williams and David.

That is my point, there are names that are common in a certain culture or area. There are also names that were popular and are not now popular.

Isn't that the same with Islamic names?

MmeLindt

Yes I am in total agreement, however, those were just examples of welsh surnames. There are a lot more Welsh surnames in regular use.

I like Welsh names though because they are culturally relevant to me. I dont like islamic names because they are not. although, I have come across some really pretty girls names on occassions.

Plus, like I said, if I worked somewhere and everyone was called Dai Jones, It would be very confusing to say the least. I dont think there is such a limited useage of names in Wales though...

names certainly do go in/out of fashion and you find more prevalence of certain names in some areas. My experince of islamic names is that there seem to be a limited choice. I dont know why that is the case. I am sure there are thousands of different names, but in my experience the same ones are used over and over again.

Conservative - Yes.
Staid and safe - yes.
Boring - yes.
Anti cosmopolitan- yes.
Unimaginative - yes.
Old fashioned - Yes.
Hidebound - yes.
Ignorant - Yes.
Sheltered - Yes.

Racist - No.

I speak as someone who has had their name choices disrespected on here too. Can you tell?

bandie, there isn't a limited choice, just some that are very popular...exactly the same as with christian names.
if you looked at a list of islamic names you'd see how many there are. Also, christain names can include names from many different languages for instance from all the romance languages, to say there aren't many arabic names is a bit like saying there aren't many welsh names..you're limiting it to one language.

I've never noticed any racism on the baby names threads.

But what I have noticed is ignorance - names being criticised for being 'made up' or wierd when really they are simply foreign names.

My taste in names is admittadly rather boring conservative.

i do identify some names as belonging to certain cultures but would never not use a name because of that. i wanted anja for my dd but dh axed it as according to him it is a foriegn name and we are not foriegn. he believes that you should use names that are culturally revelant to you. he says that he has been brought up this way so im not sure where he thinks the niamh comes from as none of his family are irish

Shesells I completely agree with you on this - I'll never understand this. I guess it's a British thing? My DH feels the same as yours. We both like the name Joaquin, and he would agree to it because I have some Spanish heritage - my great-grandfather, who I never even met as he died before I was born - was from Spain, so for some reason that makes it okay

I don't think I'll ever understand why it's perfectly okay to use names like Francesca or Stephanie or Alexander - which are very closely associated with particular cultures but have more or less become mainstream - but not to use names that are obviously not white-British and not used as frequently.

BTW, I'm the very white Farah that people on here took such issue with! Surprised the hell out of me, no one's ever even hinted to me that my name is not acceptable because I'm not Arabic!

Wanted to add to the third paragraph - how do people think those "ethnic" names that are now mainstream got to be so mainstream in the first place??? Someone obviously thought it was a pretty/handsome name and decided to use it despite it not being a name from "their" culture and it caught on.

my mother was "Jones the Post Office" for 20 years

If I'd asked for opinions on names for my part kazakh/part russian British raised DS, I think the name thread may have imploded As it was I picked a name which some might think is boring but owrks in all the relevant cultures which was important to me.

I found it very distressing that some people named their newly adopted children with names the Kazkahs couldn't even pronounce and had no phonetics in their language to deal with it.

I wonder if thats relevant to OP or just the ramblings of a tired woman?

Alexander? I don't see what particular cultures that is associated with.

wasnt it Greek but now is widely used by the scots ??

Have not read whole threasd, but I have grown a bit weary of threads about 'strange' names faling quickly into listing names which are very common in Africa countries (Comfort, Blessing, etc) or are quite simply common names from other countries - often African or Asian countries - or which are very popular names amongst African-Caribbean communities, in S London, anyway.

Maybe not actually racist but a bit 'ooo-er, look at that' at cultures which don't fit the assumptions.

It was Greek but not spelt or prounounced like that. If you are going to think that there are very few names you can use. Yes I think of it as Scottish bandie, more than anything else.

I think of it as Russian

Yes, Alexander is a Greek name which has been adapted. OrmIrian I find that name - along with others including but not limited to Joaquin or similar - perfectly acceptable. I just don't understand why other people - including my husband - don't. Just how long does a "foreign" name have to be used in the UK before it becomes okay? Why is it okay to name my daughter Francesca, but not name my son Antonio?

becasue people are much more conservative about boys names lastbox

the thing is lastbox i liked the name anja because it was great aunts name who was indeed foriegn, but doesnt that mean the name is culturally relevant to my background

i hate that names are being classed as 'made up' too. all of dh's family think that dd1's name is made up because its not a common name around here and they had never heard it before. its definately not made up, welsh yes, made up no.

i dont see any racism though, surely for racism you would have to say "oh i dont like that name its too indian. i dont like indians"

people are just against names that they havent heard before.

and i still stick by what i said earlier. if you like a name use it if you dont like it dont use it. unless of course you plan on calling your next child 'talulah does the hula from hawaii' because thats just plain cruel and silly

bandie - "Bibi" isn't a name, either. It's an honorific meaning lady or older sister. I bet you heard it used really often. And no, it doesn't mean all those women have "Bibi" written on their birth certificantes

Zazette said it well: You use its (in your eyes) excessive frequency to decry it as a name, and at the same time betray your ignorance of naming practices in the culture you're criticising.