Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My name is Karen. I’ve seen black people tense up when they hear my name. I sometimes just use my Hebrew name. It was never a problem before a few years ago.

Yep. I’ve seriously considered going by a new name (middle name? Random name?) just because I get such negative reactions. It really sucks, I loved my name until a few years ago.

Just pronounce it/introduce it slightly different.

K-rin instead of Care-n

Karin / Corrin

Anonymous wrote:I think my own name is going to be the next Karen in a few years .

I became sure of this when the entitled and insufferable millennial or Gen Z title character of a popular Netflix series appeared. The negative stereotype for white women of my generation will mirror the criticism of that title character in a few years. As an expat, I already have people mentioning that character when they learn my name, as if that's the quintessential American women now. Maybe I'll have to go by my middle name in 10 years.

Kaitlyn?

I gave my daughter a name that’s in the top 200 in the US and UK, so it’s familiar, but not overly popular. Felt really good about it.

Then we moved abroad when she was a toddler and the name is both unfamiliar to most people and pronounced differently here. She’s just adapted to listening for her name two different ways (her teachers and other locals say it differently than we do). But as this is a long-term move, I’m sure I’ll be hearing about this one when she’s older.

My kids go to a multicultural school, and boy do the teachers struggle over the names! There are some really long ones. Nicknames are good in this situation. We are a multicultural family ourselves and we chose commonly understood names for our daughters, but not so common that there are a lot of them.

I’d just like to nominate as the worst name ever, Governor Hogg’s daughter, Ima.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ima_Hogg

Anonymous wrote:My name is Karen. I’ve seen black people tense up when they hear my name. I sometimes just use my Hebrew name. It was never a problem before a few years ago.

I hate this. I’m not named Karen, but I have a wonderful aunt who is. In a world so focused on not causing offense to others, I am utterly confounded that it’s okay to target people who just happen to have this name. For what it’s worth, I call people on it, but obviously I’m not going to be able to reverse the trend by myself.

I’ve always wondered why people give their kids common names with funky spellings,it just invites trouble.
Even a name like Binyamin, which I realize is Israeli, just seems unnecessarily difficult for a kid growing up in the US.

Anonymous wrote:My name is Karen. I’ve seen black people tense up when they hear my name. I sometimes just use my Hebrew name. It was never a problem before a few years ago.

Yep. I’ve seriously considered going by a new name (middle name? Random name?) just because I get such negative reactions. It really sucks, I loved my name until a few years ago.

Anonymous wrote:Growing up my brother had a very common name but I didn’t. I was always annoyed that he could always find personalized stuff - every store had pencils and keychains with his name on it while I could never find my own. Everyone knew how to spell his name but I had to spell mine out every time.
When my dd was born i wanted to make sure they didn’t happen so we picked a more popular name (that’s become super popular, rising in popularity every year.). Didn’t expect that…

This for me too.

I have a name that can be spelled either with a silent letter or phonetically (think Aisling vs. Ashlyn except a bit more common in the US).

If people hear my name first, they spell it the phonetic way. If they see it written first they pronounce the silent letters, which I always had to correct when we had a sub doing roll call at school.

Today, when I get a coffee at Starbucks I just give my easy to spell/say middle name. Or occasionally if someone who doesn’t know me well introduces me at a work meeting, I will make a correction. It’s not a huge deal, but something to think about when naming your kid.

In my case I have a real historically existing name. But I’ve seen this come up with some of the more “creative” newer name spellings.

Anonymous wrote:Had a kid in my kindergarten class named Axel. At pick up time - there were older kids there (pick up rooms were organized by family). The older kid asked Axel - what's your name.

Axel

What?!? Your name is A$$hole?? (this was shouted)

I jumped up to intervene. There were other parents coming in -- then I apologized to Axel's mom who said:

Oh that's OK -- my mom said people would think his name is A$$hole.

OK then....

This is my son's name and never ever in 12 years has he had this problem.

You also need to parent better.

I think my own name is going to be the next Karen in a few years .

I became sure of this when the entitled and insufferable millennial or Gen Z title character of a popular Netflix series appeared. The negative stereotype for white women of my generation will mirror the criticism of that title character in a few years. As an expat, I already have people mentioning that character when they learn my name, as if that's the quintessential American women now. Maybe I'll have to go by my middle name in 10 years.

My name is Karen. I’ve seen black people tense up when they hear my name. I sometimes just use my Hebrew name. It was never a problem before a few years ago.

I have a name that’s extremely common in Italy and Spanish-speaking countries. Not so common in the US. I have spent my entire life correcting people’s incorrect pronunciation and spelling errors. It’s infuriating, mostly because the errors are due to laziness/lack of focus on the part of the speaker or writer - it’s actually not that difficult to say or write, at all.

That said, I did not want my children to experience this ongoing headache and each has a simple to say and simple to write name.

My kids name is tequila