How do people in the US choose names?

[SamePendo]

A doubt I've had for a long time. How do people choose their names? It's common in Catholic/Cristian based countries in Europe and Latin America to get their names out of the bible. If not, they choose some indigenous names, or just make some up like "Apple"... or well, you know.

Now, I've seen, especially in the African American people, that they have very strange names, where do they take them from? Do they just make them up?

And well, second question, how do people in other areas in the world choose names? (China, Africa, Arabs)?

Here in Mexico most names are (in order of popularity) Bible-based, or indigenous, or they are from wherever they immigrated, or, made up.

 

[Shiftkey]

Same way as anywhere else really. Some people choose Biblical names (the US is primarily Protestant Christian), some choose family names (I'm named after my dead uncle, and my middle name is shared with my father), some choose names from their heritage (I suspect those are some of the African American names you're wondering about), and some just like the way a name sounds.

 

[Abbott]

Here people name however they please. Maybe there's a family tradition, or there's names in the Christian Bible as Shiftkey said (since most Americans are some sort of Christian), or maybe the parents just like a name.

Class identification and race have something to do with it too. Some names have a higher social class associated with them than others. Some names are only appropriate for children of a certain race. How many black men named Jake do you know? How many white men named Demetrius do you know? There are no laws stating that this must be so, but it would still sound funny if these guidelines aren't followed.

In my case, I have this particular middle name simply because I just do, and my father insisted upon it. My father has it, my paternal grandfather had it, and his father had it. There's a story behind it, but I don't know exactly what it is. I just know that if I have a son, I'll insist he have that middle name too. Or if I have a daughter, I know that I won't name her Jennifer, because most women I've had trouble with so far have been named Jennifer, and as such I have a slight bias against them.

There's a lot of different reasons and methods people use to name their children.


The following is a name related story, and I thought it was pretty funny and disturbing at the same time:

I once heard of a programmer who had a son who had a name very similar to him, in a similar manner of Jr., II, III, IV, etc. But instead of any of those, he used 2.0 after his son's name, which stood for a second version of himself, just like a second version of a program. I just have to say A) there's nerdy, but that's over the top, and B) I feel sorry for the boy. I wouldn't be surprised if the boy legally changes his name later.


Ben

 

[Le Parisien]

I will answer the question for China and Chinese people living out of China.

Basically, Chinese words are made of ideograms, a word might have one, two, three and sometimes more ideograms. Ideograms are the building blocks of the Chinese language, sort of like the alphabet for most latin alphabet based lanaguages. Only there are thousands of ideograms, instead of 26.

Before a child is born, the Chinese parents would look through a very comprehensive dictionary in Chinese language (usually the thicker the better ) and look for the ideograms that have very sophisticated meanings, or ideograms that constitute words that are very learned and refined. Then you make sure that they also sound good in a name.

A "normal" Chinese first name has either one or two ideograms, single ideogram names are more easily found in mainland China, while in Honk Kong, Taiwan and Singapore etc... double ideogram names are the norm. But overall, nowadays single ideogram names tend to be rarer and rarer.

Actually, this has a very practical value: to avoid having the same first name as the other people. With only one ideogram, even carefully chosen, it's very likely that some other family might come up with the same idea. In Chinese culture, there are only a limited number of family names, only the first names are more unique. This is completely the opposite in most western cultures. For example, maybe 8% of the Chinese population in the world share the family name Li/Lee, like Jet Li, Bruce Lee.

Chinese ideograms' pronunciation is always one syllable long. This is why Chinese names are always two or three syllables long. One syllable for the family name, which is always one single ideogram, and one or two syllables for the first name.

One last thing: Chinese people (like many other Asians) always go by their family name first, then their first name. So Bruce Lee in Chinese is actually Li Xiao Long.

Hope this helps.

 

[MetalFortress]

For me, a combination of meaning, heritage, and how it sounds will be key. I want a Jr, as well as at least one kid named for each heritage: Armenian, Irish, Italian.

 

[seanchai]

I'm gonna give my kids sh¡tty Irish names like Caoimhghín and Cliodhna. Let's see substitute teachers pronounce those! Also, let's see if kids visit daddy in the old folks' home.