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This is just not true for all ethnic groups. My family emigrated to the US in waves between the late 19th century until around 1930. Life for Jews in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and other central/eastern European areas were not running from their Jewish heritage. They were running from:
1. Forced conscription to the Czar's army
2. Pograms
3. Starvation
4. Being forced to live in specific areas (The Pale of Settlement)
5. Being relocated by authorities
6. Being beaten for being Jewish
7. General hatred
They were happy to be Jewish and just wanted to live their lives without violence and hatred.
Many ethnic groups emigrate to the US looking to escape different things, but not necessarily their heritage.
Mine weren't escaping - they didn't run in fear, weren't impoverished and starving to death, they came because they wanted to be here and so assimilated readily into American culture, learned the language and never clinged to old ways. They embraced the new culture -- it became the new heritage.
Directed towards the OP…
This is neither here nor there…if we really take the time to research parents and their reasons as to why they name their children a certain name.
I am sure there are some families that immigrated here that will give their children names that will allow their children to “fit” in better but more often than not it is a parents preference as to what they name their offspring.
I believe I am a perfect example..
My twin sister and I were adopted and our foster parents ( when we were 5 weeks old) kept the names our Bio mother gave us which were “Monica and Jessica”
My sister and I are half Native American and Half Irish, my adopted parents are Mexican. If by going by your thread, then my parents would have given us names that would be “AMERICAN” Correct?
However my father being a hippy back in the day and on his own planet, lol, I was named Dacia Alexandra..I cannot stress how un-American this name is..
My name derives from Romania and some say Gaelic…Not American whatsoever and most definitely not Native American…
My sister was named Norma Grace, Because My mother always liked the name and Grace after my AUNT FROM my mothers side “Graciela”
So there goes the theory that most, because often times it is a name that parents like, research, has a meaning, a family member..ect.
I have a good friend whom is Half African American and half white and his parents were hippies and named him Jupiter..
Far from AMERICAN…
There are some that come here to the United States later in life ( Legally) and they change their names for personal purposes…
Like a friend of mine that is Korean and his name was originally “Popun” whoever he stated to me that he thought this was to hard for Americans to understand or relate to so he named himself “Reggie”
I do not think it really on the whole a way to escape from one’s heritage but rather to be a past of a society or culture…
A name does not define who you are, it is what you are called, how people address you, this has nothing to do with your beliefs, culture, morals or values..
To give an American child of any race or ethnicity an English or Anglicized name is to embrace his heritage, not to run from it.
And what of the Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, Samoans and American Indians who are ALSO Americans? They don't need to be named Blake or Sarah.
My real first name is common for both my cultural heritage AND for Anglo-American culture. Lucky me. But when you get down to it. It doesn't matter. It's just a name. If you don't like it, you can always change it. Or just go by a nickname. I've never met someone whose name is "Skip" on the birth certificate. But I know a ton of Skips.
If I was an American Indian, I'd feel almost cheated if my parents named me "William." I'd want a really cool name, like Skyeagle Golightly. Yeah.
...remember that your child has to grow up with this name and has to brave high school with it. Naming your child something obscure is just asking to be picked on. They have enough angst to deal with without a silly name. Please dont add to it.
I very much agree with this post. My Chinese born mother changed her first name to a French one when her family moved to Australia on my of my grandfather's diplomatic assignments. Then when she moved to the States, married and began her family, she named all of us after good friends in college. My name and my little sister's is Italian in origin. My middle sister's name is an Irish one. All of us girls took our mother's maiden name as our middle one. And my mother did this because she knew that we'd all stay in the US for all of our lives.
Anyway, we have always loved our first names. And yes, that made it much easier for us growing up in the US. No one ever made fun of our names at school. On the other hand, I've known two (white) American men who had ex-hippie parents who gave them odd first names that were East Indian in origin. And they did get teased an awful lot in grade school.
I think that some parents pick some terrible names for their children in some misguided effort to make them seem more unique and special. However, most young children and teens I know, would much rather have a plainer name because what they really want is to blend in with their friends and schoolmates instead of standing out and being picked upon. And having a unique or odd name doesn't make a person more special, it's what's inside of them that counts.
And what I also see is that there are a lot of happy and confident young people that prefer to pick their own special nickname, one that fits the person they've become. So parents should let their children head in the direction they want to go. Some will be happy flying under the radar, others will be extroverts who want to stand out from the crowd. But having a more regular name is a good starting point for all of them.
And also, let the kids decide their own balance of being a melting pot America and embracing their family's roots. Personally for me, I prefer to being a basic English speaking American. And as a woman, I have mixed feelings about my Chinese heritage, which I find very male chauvinistic. So I pick and choose the parts of being Chinese that I like and ignore the parts I dislike. And actually, it's really only while I'm on the C-D forum that I ever feel like a Chinese American. In real life, I just feel like a regular American, and a happy American at that.
I can't "sympathize" with this. My mother was from Europe and she named her kids in the Americanized versions, and I'm damn GLAD she did. Otherwise I would have Americanized it myself.
No, I wouldn't agree that one's non-Anglo forename plays a significant role in separating them from their English ancestral background/heritage by itself.
What does separate Americans from "our" English/British heritage, however, are the factors of geopolitics, time and distance. For me, my non-Anglo forename (and surname) is the least of what detaches me from a heritage that belonged to my English/Scottish ancestors (you know, from 10-15 generations ago), not to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WesternPilgrim
American culture is still fundamentally British. This is true not only of our language (language is the most powerful transmitter of culture), laws, and literature, but also on a level that most people never think about, in a thousand little things that are part of daily life. Most of what we call "culture" happens below the radar, almost unconsciously. A child raised in the United States will be participating in this community, with its predominantly English heritage and culture, all of his life and for better or worse. To give an American child of any race or ethnicity an English or Anglicized name is to embrace his heritage, not to run from it.
I couldn't disagree more with the assertion that "American culture is still fundamentally British." It isn't, and I'm sure that the vast majority of Brits would agree (in their usual patronizing way, of course).
Linguistics, the common law system and literary history are, as I see it, superficial (and debatable, in fact) commonalities at best. These "thousand little things that are part of daily life" that supposedly bind Americans to British culture are repeatedly alluded to by American Anglophiles, yet are never explained in any elaborate way, as if this vague assertion is indisputable, unbiased fact that requires no reinforcement whatsoever.
I'm sorry, but your contentions desperately need further explanation.
Mine weren't escaping - they didn't run in fear, weren't impoverished and starving to death, they came because they wanted to be here and so assimilated readily into American culture, learned the language and never clinged to old ways. They embraced the new culture -- it became the new heritage.
My point was that not all immigrants are running from their heritage. How much do you know about life in Europe for Jews in the late 19th/early 20th century?
Guess what, NONE of my kids have Romanian names, and that is because me, as a person, have had a preferences for other names, and I see NOTHING wrong with that. They are still half Romanian, and of Austrian/Greek descent! (If I have to dig really deep) but who cares???
My MAIN concern when naming my kids was the "nicknaming". My name has 25 nicknames; I picked names for them that have no ability to have OBNOXIOUS nicknames attached to them, and that don't rime with anything gross and disgusting that could lead to an obnoxious nickname. Its not like you meet someone and you go: "Hi, I am Aithne, and I'm Celtic"!!!!
On one hand, on the other hand we don't live in Romania, we live here in the US now, and I am sad to say that a LOT of people have trouble pronouncing English/International names, let alone names of other origins. Romanian is a language of Latin descent, there are a TON of names there that are similar in pronunciation with English names like David for example; also there there are several names that have Saints we celebrate like: Michael & Gabriel...in Romanian those would be: Mihail & Gavril/Gabriel, "Gabriel" is pronounced the same in English as it is in Spanish or Romanian...so, I see no issue there, or Maria...Maria which is pronounced the same in Spanish, Romanian and English, and Italian etc...it might become "Marie" in French but that's a stretch...as even they can pronounce it Maria. Nicolas same deal, in Romanian it would be Nicolae, Andy is Andy anywhere....Now if we get into Flower names...we might a problem like my English teacher in Romania switched all of our names in English for her class, mine was easy, but a colleague of mine was named "Brindusa", which translates to Daisy in English! Have someone in Florida try to say that.........do you see my point?
I think naming kids is one of the hardest things ever but not regarding one's ethnicity as much as it is about not causing nickname, and pronunciation issues for them later on. We have the most simple last name, and you have to see what the Utilities have done to it! it is HILARIOUS!
First things first - I just wanted to say I believe in every parent's right to name their child as they see fit. None of my business.
That said, one thing I have often heard from people is displeasure at getting "grief" (nicely or not so nicely) if they can't speak a language that their first and last names suggest that they likely would.
This is not much of an issue is your name is Dimitri Ivanov and you grew up and live in Dodge City, Kansas and speak only English, but if your name is Jose Gonzales and you speak only English and live in Miami... well you might get people addressing you in Spanish out of the blue, or even get stuff in the mail in Spanish. Stuff like that.
If your name is Steven Antonelli, chances are even in Europe a lot of people might assume that you might not speak Italian and be an Italian-American, Italian-Canadian, Italian-Australian, etc.
My name and my language skills go together seamlessly, but I know that for some people it gets on their nerves to have people frequently assume that they speak a language that they don't. They wouldn't likely get that so often if they had an anglicized first name that makes it obvious that they are more American than ethnicity X.
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