Xy wanted to give some trinkets to the neighbor kids this holiday season, so she had one of the girls compile a list.
- Tomanique
- Shawn’ae
- Shawniah
- Shawnique
- Jurr’ieon
- Jurr’eall
- Melqueisha
- Amy
- Tyesha
- Joshua
- Zykeith
- La Aarea
- Keira
- Lamar
- Justin
- Cheveniqua
Ages range from one to fifteen, and three-quarters of the kids are girls. I was surprised by the sheer number of kids on our little block, though a significant chunk of the list just moved away yesterday.
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Dorothy, I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more….
When I was teaching at Wilson Elementary in Broadmoor, we had to write the kids’ names on the back of their clay tiles, and I always had to put my ear as close to their mouths as possible and say, “Spell your name.” Then they would start in on this slow and deliberate string of letters that I had never heard put together in such a sequence before. I would often be surprised at how many letters were in a short sounding name. The other thing that surprised me was the way the kids from Broadmoor (zone B) pronounced the letter R. For example, if I were writing down the name ” Jurr’ eall” most likely he would have said, “J….U….AURRAH…..AURRAH……E…..A….L….L.”
“All those ready to receive their trinkets, take one step forward.
Not so fast, Justin, Joshua, and Amy……”
My favorite most lyrical name at our parish school way back when I was college age and coaching their CSAL teams was Nathashalena. The “aurrah” pronouciation of “R” is fairly widespread locally–it’s pretty much the norm in Gentilly where I live as well.
There’s a terrific study out of a business school a few years ago about the impact of names on job applications. They sent out identical resumes with different names on them, and the applications with the “ethnic” names were significantly less likely to be called for an interview. Other studies have found similar things, and it pisses me off because parents ought to be able to give their kids unique names, but it might cause them disadvantages. Should a parent stick to principles and give whatever name they want, or sell out and give a name that won’t cause any trouble?
I think it’s a trend now also to name kids really antiquated British sounding names. I know African-American kids named Giles, Nigel, etc… I teach mostly hispanic kids and sometimes they’ll have five names and go by all of them! I’ve gotten pretty good at memorizing names.