North Texas Republican asks Asian-Americans to change their names

[SWTXBelle]

Reminds me of a friend whose Russian ancestors came through Ellis Island. The patriarch could only say "Good. Fine." in English, so when asked for his surname his reply meant the family became "Gorfine".

The early 1900s brought a lot of immigrants to Hawaii from Korea, Japan, China, the Philippines, and Portugal to work on plantations. Sugar was king then.

My friend's great-great-grandfather came over from Portugal. His last name was Miento. Upon arriving at the docks, he must have been greeted by some asshole worker, because this worker listed his last name as "Mento." Mento in local Hawaii slang means crazy (or insane). His last name was Mento for several years until he left the plantation and moved to Honolulu. It was then changed back to Miento.

[AKA_Monet]

My new Asian converted name is: Tiffani "Walmart" Brown...

And DS,

Katrina is an ethnic name for a Hurricane...

Originally Posted by AKA_Monet

My new Asian converted name is: Tiffani "Walmart" Brown...

And DS,

Katrina is an ethnic name for a Hurricane...

Then we must be related because I'm Tammy "Walmart" Brown.

[AKA_Monet]

Originally Posted by OTW

Then we must be related because I'm Tammy "Walmart" Brown.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by AKA_Monet

My new Asian converted name is: Tiffani "Walmart" Brown...

And DS,

Katrina is an ethnic name for a Hurricane...

Katrina is Germanic origins isnt it?

[AKA_Monet]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Katrina is Germanic origins isnt it?

Depends on the pronunciation...

Kah-Tree-Nah...

vs.

Kat-rina

vs.

Kuh-treeena

vs.

Kaa-tri-na

[LucyKKG]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Reminds me of a friend whose Russian ancestors came through Ellis Island. The patriarch could only say "Good. Fine." in English, so when asked for his surname his reply meant the family became "Gorfine".

Haha that's really funny. My family used to be Olsen, but apparently, my great-great grandfather changed it because he thought that was too common. I still have a super Norwegian last name which is pretty pronounceable, but some people think it's Jewish. (It's got "berg" in it. That means "mountain" in Norwegian.) My family was sharecroppers/tenant farmers and they took the name of the family that owned the land once they moved here.

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by LucyKKG

Haha that's really funny. My family used to be Olsen, but apparently, my great-great grandfather changed it because he thought that was too common. I still have a super Norwegian last name which is pretty pronounceable, but some people think it's Jewish. (It's got "berg" in it. That means "mountain" in Norwegian.) My family was sharecroppers/tenant farmers and they took the name of the family that owned the land once they moved here.

I know that my family took the name with the land, and not of the husband (since that's how we did it in Norway). If I moved to Norway to live with my family, technically I could take our family name, even though I have my father's Dutch/Frisian name everyone thinks is German. If I remember right there are some people who worked our dairy in the states who are "fictive kin" and took our Americanized name. Iverson isn't our real last name, but that's how it shook out at Ellis Island due to language barriers. Oh and my cousin's husband's family has a made up name so they could get better seats at church, that cracks me up.

So really, back to the thread, I don't understand why this is an issue as there are plenty of people with hyphenated names, more than one middle name, or all kinds of variations, and they aren't targeted as a community. It seems somewhat insensitive to target one community as I know plenty of people of Hispanic/Latino descent who go by various names (middle, mother's, other) due to their naming traditions, and I know that community exists in Texas.