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I can only give you my own impressions - a girl older than 18 and younger than 45. Younger than Jennifers. The average Jessica is in her late 20s, has fairly conventional parents, and is middle class.
Names tend to "trickle down". What begins as as a somewhat unique and upper middle class name, becomes more common place.
Jessica became extremely popular in the late 70s early 80s.
This is another name with Shakespearean roots. She was the beautiful daughter of Shylock, in "The Merchant of Venice". The first "Jessica" I ever met was a girl on my floor in college. She was named after Shylock's daughter. I remember thinking how beautiful and unique her name was.
Most Jessicas are pretty and do well in school. Except for very late born Jessicas, most attend college.
I was born in 1989. My parents were expecting a boy and didn't have any girl names picked out. My mom thought "Jessica" sounded unique and was surprised "Jessica" was the most popular name for 1989. Ironically, nan (grandma) said her husband (my grandfather died before I was born... he died in 1984) used to have a huge thing for a journalist named Jessica in the 1960s, but she was killed in an accident - apparently, my grandfather always loved that name. If I was born a boy, I would have been named Patrick Joseph. Instead I'm Jessica Marie.
Someone told me they are reminded of babies. I sure hope not .
Nah, When I see Adi for some reason I think back to my Arabic class and think of "Abi" which is the playful word for "daddy." Don't ask.
Also, jade... I love looking at the Arabic names written in the script. I don't know why, but it looks better to me. I know, weird on my part.
اليا
كريم
First one is Aaliyah (it's spelled with the double a because that's how the alif is pronounced; second one is Kareem. Kareem in Arabic means generous), second one is Kareem. I know, I'm strange.
This seems like a two part question. Yes, people are judged on their names, and yes, I have wondered if I would have been perceived differently if I had a different name.
My name is Susan, but I've always wanted a cooler name. I had a friend named Quincy, and I thought her name was much better than mine.
Do I feel sorry for people whose names are stereotypical? Yes. I don't know why anyone would saddle their child with a stupid, made up, certain ethnic, name, but parents get to name their kids whatever they want, and that's just the way it is.
This seems like a two part question. Yes, people are judged on their names, and yes, I have wondered if I would have been perceived differently if I had a different name.
My name is Susan, but I've always wanted a cooler name. I had a friend named Quincy, and I thought her name was much better than mine.
Do I feel sorry for people whose names are stereotypical? Yes. I don't know why anyone would saddle their child with a stupid, made up, certain ethnic, name, but parents get to name their kids whatever they want, and that's just the way it is.
I love the name Susan, though! I don't like my name. One guy I used to see kept calling me Meghan because he liked that name better.
What I am wondering is why more people don't change their names more often? It's is not like we have the clan system anymore or royalty or anything... If I had a bad first or last name, I would not hesitate to change it.
Why are names like Evelyn, Anne, and Melissa acceptable, but Keisha, Shaniqua and La'shonda looked down upon? Let's stop the madness and judge people by their actions.
The former are European and the latter are African American names. The name is meaningless, it should be about the individual. Shaniqua may be the honor student at Harvard, while Anne could very well be the heroin addict from a lilly white long island suburb.
You're right and I'm sorry to say because, quite frankly, people ('we') seem to have a need to feel better about ourselves in some ways to other people...plain and simple. Is it right? No, absolutely not, but there it is; we do and say bad things to one another.
As parents and family to children we really do need to invest our time instilling self-esteem, self pride, and a certain sense of 'ego' in 'our' children to encourage their mental and intellectual fortitude and it is not entirely easy to explain to our children why things are the way they are.
My children all have unusual ethnic first and last names (these are family names and expected to be used in future generations to come, as well) and when they were young and began kindergarten it was difficult to explain to them why their names were not Billy, Bobby, Suzy, or Mary. My son actually came home from kindergarten and told me, "Mom, I changed up my name, my new name is Mark, so call me Mark now; don't call me _____ never again, okay?"
Yes he did and I had quite a little laugh (in my head, not in front of him) but I told him okay, no problem...and then a few minutes later I would call him by his real name and ask him to do something for me. He would do it and then say, 'hey mom, you forgot, my new name is Mark" and I would say, "oh yeah-yeah, I forgot, sorry."
This went on for a couple of days, I thought it was so funny and kind of cute that he had just decided what he was going to do about his dilemma and took some time to think about how he was going to resolve a 'problem' that I didn't even know he had. He was so cute and so sincere in the matter...he got over it and he is a grown man now and we laugh about it at family gatherings; we laugh about it a lot!
Does a person's given name enhance, detract or is it neutral from what we think of as their overall looks and appearance? If you see someone that looks very good, and then they are introduced with a name that you dislike, does that detract from the overall package or does it have little or no effect?
I just finished reading this article, and I can see where it might lead to an image problem for some as they get older. What do you think? Or is beauty just in the eye of the beholder?
One thing I find pretty silly, is there are a host of so-called "ghetto" names, like Rashid, Aaliyah, Kareem and others that are actually Arabic names. SMH!
Thing is, all of those kids are from "Hot-Lanta" (as they call it) and none of them have anything to do with being Arabic. Because of that, it makes them "ghetto".
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Because of that, it makes them "ghetto".
