Question Names

I have been thinking about names for the last few days. And yes, I'm aware of this list:
Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names
But I have recently read a story in BigCloset that got me wondering...
This is not a criticism of that story. It's just that many characters in that story are First Nations (that is, Canadian Native Americans...) and what struck me is that all of them had European first names. And then I realized that pretty much all Native Americans/First Nations characters I have seen in fiction have European first names -- main exceptions I can recall offhand are Star Trek: Voyager's Chakotay, and ElrodW's Kayda. (The Lone Ranger's Tonto does not count -- that is a Spanish nickname, and a rather insulting one too, since it means "Dizzy") When they are referred by their "traditional name", it's invariably an English translation of their native name, instead of their name in the original language.
And it got me wondering: is that really still a thing? I see other minorities -- African Americans in particular -- going for names reflecting more of their roots -- either by researching, or even by plain inventing names. Here in Brazil, not only it's fairly common for "Indians" (*) to retain traditional tribal names (mostly in Tupy or such), but some of those names became fairly popular among the general population -- witness my own character, a half-Japanese-half-Tyrolean named Janaína.

(*) yeah, "Native Brazilians" didn't really catch here yet, at least in part because we don't call people from India "indians" -- we call them "indianos" -- so "indians" may be etymologically all kinds of wrong, but it ended up becoming, well, specific to the native peoples. And, just FYI, the most common PC way to refer to African-descended people down here is not "African-Brazilians" or "Afro-Brazilians", but "Afrodescendentes" -- which I rather like, since it works even for visitors from other countries.

It likely depends on the tribe's history and culture, but Christian given names still see use. (Some examples on an outdated Tribal contacts page . For example Collie Billie is the current Chairman of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida)

I always found that weird too, the American Natives always having anglicised names.

In Australia it’s whatever the parents want, with lots of Aboriginal people being known by their native names without issue.

A weird thing I noticed when coming to Singapore is a lot of Chinese take Western names, i.e. when speaking a Chinese dialect they introduce themselves as one name, in English another Western name. Sometimes it’s as simple as the English version of their name ( like ‘Summer’) sometimes it’s just a name they choose for themselves (one guy I worked with called themselves ‘Lucifer’, there’s nothing like starting a work email ‘Hello Lucifer’ to make your brain break). Not all do it, some just use there Chinese names all the time, and that was by far the most common way it was done in Australia, but it’s a weird thing I noticed in Singapore.

That's fairly common for Orientals here in Brazil too -- mostly, they adopt an occidental "use-name" sort of like a nickname, because Westerns have a hard time pronouncing/spelling their names. There's not a lot of recent Japanese immigration -- most are third-generation (sansei) or farther down -- but there was a big wave of Korean immigration in the Sixties/Seventies and well into the Eighties, and more recently a lot of Chinese.

It's fairly old practice for cross-cultural contacts too. Lebanese immigrants adopted a custom of double-naming their children, with one European name and one Lebanese name, in a format more reminiscent of the American "Firstname Middlename Surname" than the usual Brazilian "Firstname MothersSurname FathersSurname". For example, notorious corrupt politician Paulo Salim Maluf -- "Paulo" is his European-style name used among the , "Salim" is his Lebanese name among the Lebanese community, and "Maluf" is his surname.

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: A weird thing I noticed when coming to Singapore is a lot of Chinese take Western names, i.e. when speaking a Chinese dialect they introduce themselves as one name, in English another Western name. Sometimes it’s as simple as the English version of their name ( like ‘Summer’) sometimes it’s just a name they choose for themselves (one guy I worked with called themselves ‘Lucifer’, there’s nothing like starting a work email ‘Hello Lucifer’ to make your brain break). Not all do it, some just use there Chinese names all the time, and that was by far the most common way it was done in Australia, but it’s a weird thing I noticed in Singapore.

I noticed that a lot when I was at Uni. The Chinese-Malay students all seemed to take a western name, even if their actual name was on the paper work.

Some stuck, some didn't. Had a neighbour when I was on res named Wong Tat Sing or similar. Couldn't tell you what his western name was. But then being a solid chap, we called him Fat tat after "Fat Cat and Friends", a children's show which was still on TV at the time.

Unlike Won Lo Hung whose western name never took for other reasons.

Sometimes, I feel like anglicized names are patronizing. We really can pronounce your name if you give us a chance. You might end up with a nickname though!

America is a land of immigrants.

We struggle with the squiggly letters, not the sounds.

Katssun wrote: Sometimes, I feel like anglicized names are patronizing. We really can pronounce your name if you give us a chance. You might end up with a nickname though!

Europeans have trouble getting my surname right, and it's Scottish.

null0trooper wrote:

Katssun wrote: Sometimes, I feel like anglicized names are patronizing. We really can pronounce your name if you give us a chance. You might end up with a nickname though!

Europeans have trouble getting my surname right, and it's Scottish.

That's OK, I pronounce my own surname wrong.

Katssun wrote: Sometimes, I feel like anglicized names are patronizing. We really can pronounce your name if you give us a chance. You might end up with a nickname though!

America is a land of immigrants.

We struggle with the squiggly letters, not the sounds.

Well, not quite. Take Chinese, for instance. It's a tonal language, where the way you pronounce a word imparts a lot of the meaning. I wouldn't be surprised if the way Brazilian pronounce my Chinese friend's name turns it into something really annoying to his ears. Like if you were called "Paul", and people insist in pronouncing it "Poo." I think I would choose an "official nickname" myself instead of enduring it...

Yes, I'm aware that several cultures have a "use (public) name" and a "private name". Still, the use name can be a statement of sorts. I just find it funny that either Native Americans/First Nations rarely choose to use (untranslated) traditional names of their own cultures, or mass media seems to ignore it when they do.

Also, in the 1930s, there was an effort by the US Federal Gov't to 'mainstream' the various Nations, which had the sad effect of alienating a lot of First Nations kids from their culture. Yet another case of good intentions going badly awry. As I understand it, a lot of First Nations types just took an 'Anglo' name to save themselves the tsuris

Related to surnames...

1) How do you pronounce Whateley in your head? WHATley? WAITley? Something else? Is there an agreed-upon canon pronunciation?

2) Goodkind - rhymes with "good mind" or "good wind"?

3) BKCRMWDJVG - Shouldn't the K be silent or is it just me?

marie7342231 wrote: Related to surnames...

1) How do you pronounce Whateley in your head? WHATley? WAITley? Something else? Is there an agreed-upon canon pronunciation?

Well, for what it's worth Dragon Dictate only recognizes WHATley.

marie7342231 wrote: 2) Goodkind - rhymes with "good mind" or "good wind"?

Mind

marie7342231 wrote: 3) BKCRMWDJVG - Shouldn't the K be silent or is it just me?

It's not the silent k, it's the invisible Q, V and Y that make the pronunciation truly difficult...

marie7342231 wrote: Related to surnames...

1) How do you pronounce Whateley in your head? WHATley? WAITley? Something else? Is there an agreed-upon canon pronunciation?

Wheaton. (I asked a friend that is a HUGE Lovecraft fan, and he didn't know.)

2) Goodkind - rhymes with "good mind" or "good wind"?

You do realize that wind has two pronunciations, don't you?

3) BKCRMWDJVG - Shouldn't the K be silent or is it just me?

I can't top EE's comment.

Valentine wrote:

2) Goodkind - rhymes with "good mind" or "good wind"?

You do realize that wind has two pronunciations, don't you?

haha good point. I was wracking my brain to think of a word that rhymes with wind (outside force of nature)

How about "good skinned" or "good thinned"? haha

Rhymes are a pain on occasion. The key is that it is based on sound, not necessarily letters (even though that was often how it was taught initially to students in many schools). Which means we have many more options than ING based endings: friend, ginned, skinned, tinned... I used to have a "rhyming dictionary" I might have to try to track it down again.

"Use names" come from two sources when you get down to the meat and potatoes of it. Some cultures have "use names" as a matter of course. Then you get those "use names" assigned to someone from outside the persons' society or culture (either self assigned because people butcher the persons name or assigned by members of that society for some reason).

Now, as for the names being commonly English translations. That happens with more than just native peoples (AKA "indians" in the US). Just look at what has happened to many traditional Gaelic names over the years, they have gotten turned into some sort of faux English name. In some cases the prefix is simply dropped, so O'Callahan becomes Callahan and MacNichols becomes Nichols. In other cases the name gets really worked over...Cúmheadha becomes Covey and MacPhearais becomes Corish... My suspicion is that it is because the English hate finding out they do not know how to speak properly (j/k, but seriously, it is a hood - not a bonnet) and so inflict themselves on others linguistically.

When one language dominates a society, the names used will tend to be reflective of that language. As I recall, back in the days of mass immigration from Europe to the USA many given and surnames were changed. The procedure tended to be based on either equivalence or sound. Thus a Jacques might become a James or a Giovanni might be come a Joe (Joe being sort of similar in sound to Gio).

In some ways it makes sense for the society at large. After all if a direct translation of a name ended up resulting a a S-18 type of name with no vowels (seriously, in RTC we had a guy we called "S-18, because it started with S and have 18 letters, no one could pronounce it), just how would one pronounce it? If you do not speak Lokota, you can't pronounce the names if the tones and inflections are important (as I recall in some Asian languages the tone or inflection really changes the meaning of the word, not so sure about Native American languages). So that is society inflicting a "use name" on the person (either one assigned by the society or one picked by the person to avoid the awkwardness of a 15 minute session of someone trying to say their name in a conversation).

Lastly, some Native Americans have a "Christian" style first name and then a traditional last name. I would suspect that initially at least this was self imposed to help them mix in with the rest of society better (as well as imposed to some degree by government interference, they did try to crush much of the native culture at one point). After all, it is likely easier for a Bethany to mingle with most people in our society than a Makkitotosimew (Algonquin name).

marie7342231 wrote: Related to surnames...

1) How do you pronounce Whateley in your head? WHATley? WAITley? Something else? Is there an agreed-upon canon pronunciation?

2) Goodkind - rhymes with "good mind" or "good wind"?

3) BKCRMWDJVG - Shouldn't the K be silent or is it just me?

1) Waitley
2) Good kind
3) *static*