"Blackest" Names
 

From an email I received.


These names more than others denotes the ethnicty of their beares as being almost exclusively African American
The following is the list of the blackest names. Research suggests that kids with these names have limited opportunities based on name recognition. http://www.slate.com/id/2116449



The 20 Blackest Boy Names

1. DeShawn
2. DeAndre
3. Marquis
4. Darnell
5. Terrell
6. Malik
7. Trevon
8. Tyrone
9. Willie
10. Dominique
11. Demetrius
12. Reginald
13. Jamal
14. Maurice
15. Jalen
16. Darius
17. Xavier
18. Terrance
19. Andre
20. Darryl

The 20 Blackest Girl Names

1. Imani
2. Ebony
3. Shanice
4. Aaliyah
5. Precious
6. Nia
7. Deja
8. Diamond
9. Asia
10. Aliyah
11. Jada
12. Tierra
13. Tiara
14. Kiara
15. Jazmine
16. Jasmin
17. Jazmin
18. Jasmine
19. Alexus
20. Raven

Yesterday while at Carowinds, a mother summoned her daughter. Daughter's name? Beyonce.:o I started choking on my funnel cake.:eek: :(

The girl who made my funnel cake's name? Lyric:eek: :o :(

The accompaning article was very informative about the socio-economics of why and how people are named.

Our people, you just have to laugh sometimes

Interesting! I knew of a black woman in my town who named her son Efram Zimbalist after the star of the old TV show the FBI from back in the day!:)

(The author of the article wrote the book Freakonomics, which is very eye opening. There is a chapter in this book entitled:'Why do drug dealers live in their mother's house' or to that effect. It is an economic and sociological examination of this question in view of the rise of the crack cocaine trade as a business in our communities.)

The two Jasmines I know are not black. One girl is Chinese and the other is Indian (as in from India).

we have a Kiara and a Tierra who are students where I work and both of them are Hispanic.

:o

Tierra is a Hispanic name that means "Earth". I've never met a black Tierra.

I know several Tierras/Tiarra/Teiarra/Tiaras who are Black.

Ditto.

For once, I am glad Keisha and its various forms is not on the list.

BTW my Keisha is spelled the Italian way (sort of) Kaisha.

The italians spell it Kaisa.:D ;) :D

I don't doubt that there are many. Like I said, I've personally never met one. The thing that had me :confused: was putting on a list of names that "Almost Exclusively AA".

I don't think it states that but for me and many of my Black counterparts, when we hear the name "Deshawn" for example, we typically can picture another Black person. When we hear the name "Tasha" our expectation is that we will see a Black female. The same with Jasmine even though I had a Hispanic student named Jasmine a few years ago, or was she a college classmate? I forget. Or maybe it was both.

We know that these names are not EXCLUSIVELY Black names, but there is a predominance that the names listed above and a few others are typically Black names.

Some of the names listed as "black" names are actually derived from other languages such as Arabic (eg, Jasmine), other African languages,etc. The real issue here is predominance of usage and the particular patterns of usage that make this an ethnic/racial issue. This is an issue of stigmatiziation piggybacking on certain sterotypes, which do have some reality according to socioeconomc and ethnic indicators.

Re: "Blackest" Names
 

LMAO!! This is my daughter's name.

Mind you, I named her after my mother. Who was white. :eek:

I know several Black Maurices. Born after 1961 outside of California.

From the point of view of many Blacks, we know someone with the names mentioned in the original post and by and large, the people we know with those names are people who are Black.

Under the top 20 guys names hey forgot: Jermaine and Jerome

From the article:

"What kind of parent is most likely to give a child such a distinctively black name? The data offer a clear answer: an unmarried, low-income, undereducated, teenage mother from a black neighborhood who has a distinctively black name herself. Giving a child a super-black name would seem to be a black parent's signal of solidarity with her community—the flip side of the "acting white" phenomenon. "

Does anyone agree with this? At one of my previous jobs, I dealt with A LOT of low income AA's and Latina's. To me, this statement is about 99.9% true. I certainly don't think these names are out of the ordinary, b/c I'm sure I know someone with every name on the lists. I just don't understand why it gets out of hand, like making up names that are impossible for others to pronounce (even though I know it's not about everyone else). Sometimes I would have to spell the child's name out b/c I didn't want to mispronounce it. A lot of kids were named after liquor and cars was common. One lady, I will never forget this, had daughters named Alize and Remy. :o

I think all of it rings true except Xavier. I've met way more Hispanic Xaviers than AA ones.

In one of my previous roles at my company, I saw an application for twins named Praise and Blessings. That is all.

A lot of factors go into naming children -- being different/unique, being EXTRA, in addition to ones mentioned above.

I think what some might be overlooking is not that these names are not found with Caucasians or Latinos or Asians, i.e. Jasmine, Xavier, etc., but within the Black community, a lot of these names predominate and/or are common.

Yes, but they were probably Javier, instead of Xavier, but it's pronounced the same.

While I agree that inner city African Americans often give their children 'unique' names, I don't agree with the reasoning here. I think it's more what we think sounds attractive, or religious reasons, and yes I'm saying we because my name is Malika and my daughter's name is Imani, I guess 'black' names. Like I said, my mother was white, so we really don't fit in this example. I also wasn't a teenage mother nor am I undereducated. So I don't know, I would like to see the 'data' that this person is referring to.

My, I didn't know Xavier (pronounced like Savior, not Jah-ve-air) was considered a "black" name. :confused:

it's pronounced "Savior?" hunh, didn't know that. i just spend an entire school year calling this boy X-avier...

that's how they pronounce it in X-men!

I always thought it was X-avier too. Oh well.

Naming your child Imani is one thing. Naming your child Tae Kwon Da is another. :)

Amen on that!

I pronounce it Zavier, as in xylophone as opposed to x-ray.

I think that Imani is a pretty name. :)

Thanks PnC. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to spell the pronouciation, and "Savior" was all that would come to mind. LOL

I think "Imani" means "peace" doesn't it?? What language is it?? I love that name.

Imani is Swahili for faith.:)

I knew I remembered that word being in a song we sung in highschool. (My HS music director loved singing in Swahili and other unique languages:) )

I see a lot of this. My kids go to a large high school that's 55% black, 40% white, and the rest Hispanic and Asian. So far, seven of my children have attended that school and although there have been many black students who got top honors, not one of those in the past 7 years has had an exotic name. They all had names like Whitney, Ashley, Morgan, and Taylor.

Most of the black students do have exotic names, though, and most live in the projects or nearby.

Dammit LMAO

My name is Swahili too! :D

Damn--LOL. I don't get this list, though. It kind of sucks.

enigma_AKA

I have mixed feelings about this list. I remember the same argument being made years ago that if your name sounds black on your resume it could cost you the job, etc. Like they can't deny you the job during the interview. :confused:

I think that if anything this list and the fact that someone needed to compile it highlights that racism still exists in this country. What I gather is that they (the powers that be) don't care if your name is made up or actually has meaning. To them there really isn't a difference between Imani and Tae Kwon Da. If it doesn't sound European then your azz is grass.

We all know that Oprah & Condelezza certainly aren't European sounding names. So that's why I don't lose any sleep over these people and their so called lists.

Yes, you are right in what you assert: the real issue is stereotyping and racism. This phenomenon has a long history in the US: at one time many Jews changed their names to a more "Wasp-sounding" name in public life to ward this off.

But there a another issue here,too:why the preponderance of these so-called black names in a certain socio-economic strata of black society, and what does mean? And what are the linkages between this phenomenon and certain social outcomes? These are legitimate questions.

Hot damn!! Learn something new everyday. I've never heard them pronounced the same. All the AA Xavier's I know pronounced their names X-Za-V-Er. All the Javier's I know are Hispanic and pronounce it Ha-V-Air. Go figure.

I guess I should have specified and said that in Spanish, they are pronounced the same. The X and the J have similar sounds. It's like when a Mexican says they are from Mexico, they say it Me-He-Co.