Best made-up first name ever

[Nick Gann]

I had a feeling it was that...

[Peter McFerrin]

Your daughter's cute, but you should have given her an Old Testament name.

"Hagar" is pretty cute.

[canopener]

Originally posted by Peter McFerrin
There are a lot of West African names that sound "made-up" but are ancient and honorable--Tanisha and Tamika are the examples I always think of. However, there aren't that many of those three-syllable Ibo or Yoruba names ending with a schwa, so a lot of poor/uneducated Afro-American women end up just making up names, many of which would sound fairly ridiculous to a native speaker of a Bantu language. (Thus, "TaRhonda.")

I remember reading a study about this that showed that as black families become wealthier, they have a greater tendency to give their children "conventional" European/Biblical-origin names instead of things like Rinkisha. I don't think there's as much of a tendency for lower-income whites to make up names for their children, although the use of unconventional names like Dakota and Madison is largely a lower- and working-class phenomenon.

I am not making this racial or anything, but...


I while back, I overheard two educated young Afro-American ladies' conversation on campus...
They were discussing their African culture in general (I believe they were from the Philadelphia area). Anyway, long story short, they believed themselves to be real "Africans" as well as every other Afro-American in the United States. One of them brought up Afro-Jamaicans and both of them agreed that they were not "real" Africans.
I don't understand, I, myself am a bi-racial individual, but I don't get the distinction...

On another note, in a class discussion, one girl, who was trying her best to be PC referred to native African tribesmen as African-American. When the instructor corrected her, she didn't get it.

I guess it just goes to show, PC-ness isn't an excuse for ignorance.
Oh well.

[jawzzz]

Originally posted by Peter McFerrin
Your daughter's cute, but you should have given her an Old Testament name.

"Hagar" is pretty cute.

Thanks Peter, but I think she would hate me later if I named her Hagar.

If it makes you feel better, at least one of my three kids has an Old Testament name: Christopher David.

[KingOfAmps]

Originally posted by Bard2dbone
I still think the all time champion will be a kid with a name that SOUNDS like Sha-Theed but was SPELLED like what you call drivers who cut you off on the freeway.

I treated this kid.

This is the funniest thing I've ever heard. Ever.

[Peter McFerrin]

Originally posted by canopener
Anyway, long story short, they believed themselves to be real "Africans" as well as every other Afro-American in the United States. One of them brought up Afro-Jamaicans and both of them agreed that they were not "real" Africans.
I don't understand, I, myself am a bi-racial individual, but I don't get the distinction...

Ah, I can't wait to get back into academia...

If anything, Afro-Jamaicans are much more "African" than Afro-Americans due to the fact that the ratio of blacks to whites in Jamaica has always been much, much higher than it ever was in the American South (Mississippi and maybe South Carolina excepted). This made it easier for Afro-Jamaicans to preserve various aspects of their African heritage.

[Phat Ham]

Originally posted by Solmnia
Auto-bots, transform!
I used to love transformers. (And if you actually know someone named that, thats wierd and kind of funny, but mostly wierd.)

http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_fullstory.asp?id=3828

[20db pad]

Originally posted by Mud Flaps
There was a secretary general at the UN who's first name was U.

That's U Thant, Secretary General from Burma from 1961 to 1971. I drew his name out of a hat to do a report on him when I was in elementary school.

There was another UN SG whose name was Boutros Boutros-Ghali, as any David Letterman fan knows.

[kmacleish]

Ahh, the wonders of TalkBass. Where else could I have the opportunity to share this otherwise useless bit of trivia...:

The girl at the drive-through window of a Hardee's in a small South Carolina town was wearing a name tag, upon which was emplazoned the name:

BEEYONKAH

In its correct spelling, a pretty name. In this spelling, I envision a lifetime of fast-food jobs because no other employer will take her seriously. Poor girl.

[Brendan]

The use of a single letter as a name is a practice not entirely unknown in Scotland (among other places). Heck, Harry S Truman's middle name was S. It's more common as a middle name, but it's been known to be a first, middle, or last name.

Knowing that it's actually a traditional practice (I'm only aware of it's Scottish roots, though I'm sure it has others), I don't think the Single letter counts as "made up."

[Nick Gann]

I have a friend, his name is Chris O. He's chinese, fwiw. He looks really hilarious in his ROTC uniform, everyone else has a long last name, but his is just "O".