"Blackest" Names

[DoggyStyle82]

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

[CrimsonTide4]

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

The girl who made my funnel cake's name? Lyric

[DoggyStyle82]

Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
Yesterday while at Carowinds, a mother summoned her daughter. Daughter's name? Beyonce. I started choking on my funnel cake.

The girl who made my funnel cake's name? Lyric

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

[Wolfman]

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.)

[Taualumna]

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

[MeezDiscreet]

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

[AlphaFrog]

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

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

[CrimsonTide4]

Originally posted by AlphaFrog
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.

[lilbay77]

Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
I know several Tierras/Tiarra/Teiarra/Tiaras who are Black.

Ditto.

[BlueWinter]

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.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
I know several Tierras/Tiarra/Teiarra/Tiaras who are Black.

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

[CrimsonTide4]

Originally posted by AlphaFrog
I don't doubt that there are many. Like I said, I've personally never met one. The thing that had me 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.

[Wolfman]

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.

[mulattogyrl]

Originally posted by DoggyStyle82
1. Imani

LMAO!! This is my daughter's name.

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

[CrimsonTide4]

Originally posted by BetaRose
I was surprised to see some of the names on this list, like Maurice (I've never met a black Maurice, but I know a few middle aged white men white that name)

But then I read the Slate article that the lists came from. Turns out these lists are based only on babies born in California after 1961. That doesn't seem like a very representative sample of what the rest of the country is naming their children. I would be interested to see a list that uses a nationwide dataset to see what names are on it.

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.