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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Do you mispronounce and look down on black names?

What would you think of a black man named Mark versus a black man name DeMarcus?

Do you think Mark was raised by a college educated nuclear black family, or was he adopted? Did DeMarcus grow up in subsidized housing never knowing his father?

My name is Arabic, traditionally used in the black community.  After my freshman year of college  I went by the nickname Nicole and the change was obvious.  I was still a black woman, but so there was a privilege in going by Nicole.

I had my children, and gave them top 100 Euro-centralist names, believing this was better for them.

My daughter has friend, a white child from an upper middle class family, named Karsynne.  My son has a boy in his class named Wolff. I know so many white kids with names that are absolutely bizarre, completely made up and I want to kick myself for not naming my daughter Iesha.  I thought I could erase a bit of their blackness, and it would help them navigate.

Seeing my Michael next to a blue eyed, blonde haired little boy named Maverick and I just have to laugh.    [/quote]

So, this is a little bit of a tangent but I think it's relevant. It's about how the person feels with their own name, not how others think of you.   I'm a white woman who grew up with an Eastern European surname that is unheard of in the US and hard for the mainstream to wrap their heads around.  When I was introduced or introducing myself, the reaction was always, "what?" and then an attempt to pronounce it (it's not hard to pronounce, just foreign to the ear).  It made me feel shy and nervous to meet people.

Just before I became an adult, my mom divorced my dad and changed my name to her maiden name, which had been Americanized and is pretty simple/common.  And works very well with my first name.  It was easy to introduce myself and easy for people to remember my name and I found myself more confident.

Circling back to your thoughts, I do think that having the easy, non-weird name helped others see me in a more positive light as well.

So while race may play a part, I do think common-ness really helps.  Or, rather, lack of weirdness in regards to the mainstream's experience of it.[/quote]

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