Reply to s/o Names you like but rarely hear

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So, it's cultural appropriation.  So, I side-eye people who appropriate culture that is not their own.  So, you get defensive about that.  So, you post a nonsensical question about "ownership."

That's what.[/quote]

NP here.  Hold the phone, so someone who's 100% Irish, though multiple generations American, is engaging in cultural appropriation if they name their daughter Aelish?  Even if they have an Irish last name?  And this is because they're now "American", not Irish?  Then what names ARE American and acceptable under this reasoning?  [/quote]

If you didn't know how to pronounce the name growing up, it's not your culture.  You're trying to put out that you have a connection to Ireland that is not there.  There are Irish Americans that are still very closely connected to this culture -- they have living Irish people in their families, or they travel back and forth and keep close with relatives in Ireland.  But those names aren't exotic to those people, they're just names.  So again, if you didn't hear these names growing up, if you had to be taught how to pronounce them when you were thumbing through baby name books: then you are part of the diaspora, you are Irish American, you are not Irish.  And it might hurt your feelings to learn this, but nobody hates Irish Americans who don't understand they're not actually Irish more than the Irish do.  It's a pretense.  That's why the Irish PP in this thread put an obligatory "Sully from Boston" dig in her response.

Sincerely, a Murphy[/quote]

PP here - let me be clear, I have no dog in this fight.  I'm a drop Irish along with half a dozen other nationalities and gave my kids family names.  This is a thread about names, not about migration patterns and sociology.  My point is, if "Irish Americans" aren't allowed to use certain names because of cultural appropriation, what names ARE they allowed to use?  You're implying that for the vast majority of us generically "American" folks that have no remaining connection to the countries our ancestors came from, that there are names that are off limits and names that are permissible.  Which names are which?  Which names are permissible to you?  Would you extend this rational to Italian Americans?  African Americans?  [/quote]

If the name is so unique to a culture that not only do most people not know how to pronounce it upon seeing it spelled,[i] but also the parents didn't know how to pronounce it upon seeing it spelled[/i], then yes.  Naming your kid that to stake out a connection to that culture is appropriation, and obnoxious.  [/quote]

DP. I really don't see how it can be appropriation when it's your own historical culture. Naming your kid Cohen when you are a Christian with no Jewish heritage is appropriation. Naming your kid Levi or Asher is not because those Old Testament names are part of shared heritage between Jews and Christians.

I am Jewish and no one in my family has used particularly Jewish names for several generations. But if I decide to name my kids Moshe or Simcha or Ruchel, that's not appropriation, it's just reaching back further in my own historical culture. Now, my family and peers would find those names silly because we aren't Orthodox, but that's different. I agree that naming your kid Saoirse when you have only a tentative connection with Ireland is silly, but it's not appropriation. It's just pretentious.[/quote]

Sorry for messing up the quotes, all.   :oops:

I agree with the immediate PP that it's pretentiousness, not appropriation.  I'm probably 10% Irish, but could go way back into my family tree and find a Aelish or Saorirse type name.  If it's literally a family name, I absolutely disagree that it's cultural appropriation to use it.  Pretentious and obnoxious and I would never do it, but not appropriation when it's my own literal ancestor.

And again, nobody has answered my original question.  If Irish Americans (or Italian Americans or Polish Americans) are not allowed to use those ethnic names because it's cultural appropriation, [b]what names are they allowed to use?  [/b]  What are the generic "American" names?[/quote]

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