Chapter 6, the final chapter in the book, displays the most popular names in socioeconomic groups and discusses how successful people given different names become. However, it isn't the name that makes the person successful for unsuccessful. The man that named two of his sons Winner and Loser found this out first hand (and why he named his son Loser I will never know). Loser had become successful as a police sergeant and Winner had a long history of criminal activity.
The book has several lists of names given to children that are black and white and in different socioeconomic groups. The names that are given to black and white boys and girls are usually very different. A black mother giving her child a distinctively black name usually comes from an unmarried, low income, low educated household from a black neighborhood. The black mother wants to name her son or daughter these names to keep the black culture alive through the family and not "act white." Just as black children have to "act black" so they don't get taunted, mothers have to name their children black names to not "act white."
I was looking through the lists and I noticed my name, Justin, on the "Most Common Low-End White Boy Names. Not only that, but my middle name, Anthony, as also on this list of five names. I come from a middle-income family, so I sort of go against this finding. I just thought it was interesting.
It is also interesting how popular names change so quickly. Names that were popular only 30 or 40 years ago, such as Linda, Debra, and Sandra, are hardly used anymore. People are trying to keep up with the trendy names of the time. There are some names that seem to stick for a while, such as Michael and David. I'm sure there will be many names in ten or twenty years that will hardly ever hear of today. The names may seem very weird to us now, but now so weird down the road. Down the road, I will probably want my son or daughter to have a trendy name to stay with the times.
1 comment:
It was interesting to see all the popular names and how they are distributed among black and whites, as well as among high and low income families. The way the popularity of names changes is also surprising. However, some of the names given by black parents, to ensure they were "acting black" as the authors theorize, were pretty outrageous. One name that stands out was "Temptress." Why a mother would name her daughter that is beyond me, but it is sure to have had a detrimental effect on how her life turned out, considering she was frequently in court on prostitution and related charges.
But the name you get is probably not crucial to your success, the way it is measured by society. It might present some trouble for the bearer of a disagreeable name, but according to the book, Loser's friends called him Lou and he was good police officer; his brother Winner was the career criminal.
Post a Comment