Reply to s/o Names you like but rarely hear

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

If you didn't know how to pronounce the name growing up, it's not your culture.  [b]You're trying to put out that you have a connection to Ireland that is not there. [/b] 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]

Or maybe you just like the name.

My background is Jewish. If I encountered a Goldie Chen, or a Goldie Vassilikos, or a Goldie Garcia, or a Goldie Tesfaye, or Goldie Bhattacharya, or ... I wouldn't think, "You don't get to use that name because you don't have a Jewish background."[/quote]

Except Goldie is not analogous to Saorsie.  Goldie is like Patrick.  If you met a Shlomo Garcia you wouldn't assume a Jewish connection, or side-eye a lack of Jewish connection?[/quote]

No, I certainly would not side-eye a lack of Jewish connection. I would assume that there was one, but I wouldn't get upset if there weren't. We don't own the name. There's no licensing. [/quote]

+1.  This is the fundamental flaw in claiming cultural appropriation with baby names, especially when it's white Americans using names from other backgrounds.  Because PP refuses to answer the question I've asked more than once, I'll give the answer.  If generic white Americans aren't allowed to use any names except generic white American names, there are literally no names aside from America, Savannah, Madison and whatever other names were literally made up in the U.S.  While it may be cultural appropriation to steal a baby name that is used in specific contexts in specific cultures, it is not cultural appropriation to use a name that is not your actual culture.  There are certainly plenty of non-English Elizabeths and non-Hebrew Rachels out there.  PP just has a personal hang ups with Irish Americans using the hard to pronounce Irish names and is trying to paint an overbroad brush about cultural appropriation.

Sorry for the derail, all.  [/quote]

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