Writing at Clutch magazine, Yesha Callahan describes the double standard regarding so-called black names and wonders why some of the nontraditional names that white parents give their children are not similarly critiqued.
There’s always that question of “What’s in a name?” but nowadays it’s “Why do parents give black children such weird names?”. That exact question was posed by a Reddit reader last week, to Black parents of Reddit:
… Just curious why you name your kids names like D’brickishaw, Barkevious D’quell (all NFL players first names) and so on. I don’t know 2 people in this world named Barkevious. Is it a “unique” thing? My black friends don’t know the answer so I’m asking the source …
Daily Beast writer, Jamelle Bouie, received a barrage of negative comments after his series of Tweets pointing out the double standards that exist between black and white names:
“Seriously, I will take your ‘questions’ about ‘weird’ black names seriously when you make fun of Reince Priebus and Rand Paul. White people giving their kids names like Saxby Chambliss and Tagg Romney is a clear sign of cultural pathology.” If names like “DeShawn” and “Shanice” are fair targets for ridicule, then the same should be true for “Saxby” and “Tagg.” …
Like Bouie stated, apparently these so-called “black” names are treated inferior. So it’s completely fine for a kid to walk around with the name “Apple”, but “Laquan” isn’t? Dweeezil, is completely fine. Shaniqua, oh that’s ghetto. A few months ago I noticed someone on Facebook posting the name of their new son, I had to raise an eyebrow. Skywalker? Really, dude? You can name your child after a Star Wars character and no one raises an eyebrow. Now that’s what you call white privilege.
Read Yesha Callahan's entire piece at Clutch magazine.
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