<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1 http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META content='"MSHTML 4.72.3110.7"' name=GENERATOR>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV>I thought some on the list might be interested in this article. Lots
of connections between naming, generations, race, class, gender, etc.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Sorry for the html coding. <BR><BR><A
href="http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56149-1999Nov28.html">http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56149-1999Nov28.html</A><BR><BR>Playing
the Name Game With Baby</DIV>
<DIV>by Alysia Bennett</DIV>
<DIV>Monday, Nov. 29, 1999</DIV>
<DIV>C4<BR><BR><p>Once upon a time, before Frank Zappa named his son
Dweezil and his daughter Moon Unit, before Demi Moore named her girls Rumer and
Scout, there lived a boy named Jack and a girl named Jill. Plain folk with plain
names.</p><BR><p>Now, meet generation next. The mothers and fathers
of children named Sun-Everlasting God, Dezire Messiah, Treasure, Sincere, Heaven
Lee, Nobility, Trinity and Diamond. Sounds like a liturgical recitation, but
these are the actual names of local children born within the last few months.
Forget about names for the new millennium (Annikin and Millennia). It doesn't
get any better than this.</p><BR><p>But why would parents choose
such names and, as entertaining as they are, what effect, if any, will these
names have on the children? They can't all be rock stars, pro wrestlers, super
models and movie stars – occupations where an unusual name might be an
asset.</p><BR><p>And although the best and the brightest of them may
be computer engineers, scientists or even teachers, how does Sun-Everlasting God
get elected in a secular society? Certainly, Dezire Messiah will have a tough
time in Hollywood; there's already a Diamond in pro-wrestling. And who will ever
believe Sincere is, well, sincere?</p><BR><p>Clevland Evans,
associate professor of psychology at Bellevue University in Nebraska and author
of "Unusual and Most Popular Baby Names," has written extensively on
the subject and believes he may know the answer to the first two
questions.</p><BR><p>"American culture has always been the most
individualistic culture in the world, but we're even more that way than we used
to be. This idea that everybody should be unique, and that you need to give your
child a name that expresses that, is very popular in the culture. In particular,
I get all sorts of e-mails and responses from people all the time who want to
know what the most popular names are so they can avoid giving them to their
children."</p><BR><p>Local birth announcements for the past few
months are a testament to just how creative some parents can be. Take a look and
a quirky pattern emerges in the form of six categories: deities, personal
traits, liquor, precious stones, the rampant and seemingly indiscriminate use of
the accent mark, and people who like to use the letter
"y."</p><BR><p>Perhaps recognizing that what a parent
decides to name a child is often visceral, Evans notes that talking about
socioeconomic differences usually is difficult. "That's one thing that
Americans have such a hard time with," he says. "Nobody is offended
when I point out that African Americans, on the average, have a different set of
names than white Americans, but I have a lot of people in the U.S. that get
really offended when I point out that upper-middle-class people have a different
set of names they like [to use] than working-class people do. Americans like to
think that we are a classless society and the only thing class means is that you
have more income, and otherwise, we are all alike. No, there are a lot of tastes
and other things that go along with [it], than just
income."</p><BR><p>Take for example the upper middle class, he
says. Although they are looking for new and unusual names too, they opt to go
back and revive something that's not being used much at the moment – names
like Emma or Henry. "They're reviving these old things, where the working
class are the ones who will pick up on names that are new, names that have not
been used as first names until recently." The name Brittany, he says, is a
perfect example. "Until about 30 years ago Brittany was only a province of
France."</p><BR><p>The wealthy, he says, are less likely to
choose that name. "Wealthy people want antiques. They like old stuff
because they are socialized to appreciate the past ... the past has
been good to their family, their culture. With poorer people, the past hasn't
been necessarily good to them. Focusing on the future is what is positive for
them, and so newer things are what they
like."</p><BR><p>Looking at people's tastes in clothing or
furniture, he says, is further proof that socioeconomic factors play a part in
the choices we make. "Poorer people are much more likely to want newer
styles, where more wealthy people are more likely to go for things that are more
traditional. It's the same way in baby names."</p><BR><p>As for
cultural differences, he points to the use of alcoholic beverages as first
names. Whites are more likely to choose names like Brandy or Sherry. Chardonnay
and Shampagne, names given to two local children, are much more likely to be
African American, he says.</p><BR><p>"African Americans are
much more comfortable creating new names for their kids. They're more
comfortable taking some of those words like chardonnay over, but of course,
they're even more comfortable just making things up from syllables like Shamika
[or] Shalonda than people of other ethnic groups are. It's been that way since
the 1960s."</p><BR><p>Ageism, he says, is another factor,
especially when choosing girls' names. He says that a lot of Americans will not
give a child, especially a daughter, a name that they know anybody over 25 has.
For some, a name that was popular in their own age group or their parents' age
group is not new enough. Part of that, he says, is
ageism.</p><BR><p>"Ask people to tell you what are the women's
names they think are ugly, that they would never give a baby today. Most of them
come up with a list of names that are the names that are popular for women who
are in nursing homes, because it is so bad to be elderly, especially as a woman
in our culture.</p><BR><p>"Everybody thinks names like Ruth and
Ida, Bessie and Maude are ugly. They'll tell you it's the sound that makes them
ugly. It's not the sound, because you can find pairs of names that sound almost
exactly alike, but have completely different images like Elsie and Kelsie. It's
that Elsie is associated with wrinkles in their mind [and] that makes it sound
ugly. Kelsie is new, so it sounds pretty."</p><BR><p>Culture,
class and attitudes about aging may play a part in what parents name a child,
but some names might not be explained away so easily. They border on the
romantic and fantastical, saying more about the parents as individuals than the
group they belong to. Twenty-two-year-old Loijielyn Cruz Marasigan, an accounts
payable clerk from Rockville, named her daughter Lady Marien. The story of Robin
Hood was not an influence, she says. Marien is a combination of her nickname,
Jien, and her husband's first name, Marlon. Combining the names of the parents
to produce a child's is a family tradition, but adding Lady made it
special.</p><BR><p>"You don't want a typical name," she
explains. "We wanted it to be Princess Marien but that was too long, so we
chose Lady, and it still sounds like
royalty."</p><BR><p>"We wanted something easy to say,
pretty, feminine, but different," says Shelley D. Nembhard, a 35-year-old
RN at Mid Atlantic Medical Services Inc., who moved here from England eight
years ago. She and her husband, John, an EKG technician, named their daughter
Rhayvenne Starre. Their families, she says, "didn't know how to react, but
they got used to it." They get "a mixed reaction" from
non-family.</p><BR><p>The couple also has a 3-year-old daughter
named Chynna Raynne and an 8-year-old named Thea. "We wanted to give them
names that were different, but not something that they'd get teased for in
school," she said.</p><BR><p>When Mysty Snelson, a 31-year-old
clerk at the National Institutes of Health, was looking for a name for her
daughter, she found the answer in a book called "Heaven," by V.C.
Andrews, author of the best-seller "Flowers in the Attic." She named
her Heaven Noelle Bradbury. Of the uniqueness of her youngest child's name, the
mother of three says, "I've noticed that a lot of people really love her
name or are really turned off by it and ask me 'What about when she starts
school?' It'll be interesting to see how people react in the
future."</p><BR><p>She may not be waiting and watching alone.
According to Evans, the name is not so unusual anymore. Three local baby girls
were given that name within the last few months, and it's catching on in other
parts of the country. In 1998, five newborns in Nebraska alone were named
Heaven.</p><BR><p>"We live in a mass culture," Evans says.
We "watch the same television, listen to the same music, read the same
newspapers."</p><BR><p>So, Heaven is safe. But what about
Trinity, Dezire Messiah, Messiah Emanuel and Sun-Everlasting God? Or Nobility
and Favour? What will the effect be on these children? According to Evans,
psychological research generally shows that having an uncommon name is neutral
or slightly positive, especially for girls. However, he says, "that's for
the mass of uncommon names, which don't sound humorous or have a negative
connotation to people.</p><BR><p>"The [example] I always
use," he says, is that of "a little boy born in Florida a few years
ago named Tragedy. Obviously, if you name your child something like that, it's
going to be a negative influence. There's a way to get too creative that people
then can't take you seriously. The happy medium is the way to
go."</p></DIV></BODY></HTML>