Trevor Noah has a friend named Hitler!
Trevor said it was only after he travelled outside of South Africa that he realized how people are taken aback by this. The way Trevor explains the rationale is Hitler was a powerful man so powerful that white people even asked black people to fight alongside them against Hitler. If the name can evoke such a reaction then Hitler is a powerful name in Apartheid South Africa. A similar explanation can be given for other names in South Africa such as Professor, Doctor or Boss, which meant poor black people named their child something like Boss to turn the tables on white people who now have to call that child Boss. We need to increase our cultural compass to understand other people think differently to what we do!
When names are uncommon people's reaction is often to laugh, and to ridicule the parents for choosing such a 'horrible’ name, yet names and surnames are part of our history and heritage something we ought to be proud of, they tell an important story of who we are and how we present ourselves. Names have become so associated with brands that people are marketing their names as if they were products. While some names certainly have alternative meanings, and evoke strong emotions in people, as demonstrated in Rowan Atkinson’s skit about classroom roll call. But, here we are talking about something altogether different, I do not understand why an innocent and interesting name such as Abcde (ab-see-dee) could bring about so much internet trolling.
Yes, names have taken an interesting turn in the modern world, just look at the names of any rockstar’s children and the fact that more unisex names are being used perhaps even more interestingly some names are crossing over into the opposite gender as with the example of some boys being named Maria. That is all very interesting and perhaps even strange, but, if we translate names we are familiar with we might be embarrassed by the connotations our ’innocent’ names carry. As a South African I have come across some interesting names such as; Exit, Forget, Not-The-Same-House. It is time we stop mocking things we do not understand and take time to listen to people’s stories of their names. It is as if internet trolls feel they are the first person ever to mock someone because of their name, or the fact someone wears spectacles or contact lenses.
On the 2nd of November Traci Redford’s daughter, Abcde was mocked by a flight attendant. They had early boarding since Abcde suffers from epilepsy, a flight attendant noticed the name of the boarding pass and took a photo of it and shared in on social media and made fun of it to her work colleagues. Abcde asked her mom “why is she laughing at me?” to which her mother responded, “not everyone is nice and not everyone is going to be nice and it’s unfortunate.” This single instance demonstrates discrimination on so many levels making fun of a little girl who has epilepsy!
Discrimination of gender is also an issue with unisex names and of course the problem that people who go through Gender Reassignment face when they change their name such as Jane/Jack Halberstam.
Women change their surname when they get married often resulting in unfortunate name/surname combinations. Discriminating names based on race stating that a name is tribal or discriminating against religious-themed names, even though the majority of western names are based on biblical names. Of course, there is also the issue of sexual orientation commonly the name Gabriele is mocked for sounding ’gay’.
But, what about your name, can it withstand scrutiny?
First, they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
- Martin Niemöller
Often this is translated in America as first, they came for the socialists, whether they were socialists or communists we can begin thinking that we would not speak out for one of those groups. But, we can extend this to “I did not speak up for black people, I did not speak out for Trans people, disabled people etc” Further I did not speak out for bullied kids but I did speak out about my bullied burger… This is a reference to a campaign Burger King made about bullying. Where a child gets bullied in Burger King and few people speak up about it, people collect their burger and it is destroyed, then people speak up demanding a new burger, to which they are told you speak up for a bullied burger but not about a bullied child. Although, let’s be honest burger king has their fair share of sexist adds.
If we do not take heed to “speaking out” then no one will be there for us either.
But, how to speak up about discrimination? Step one is to be prepared! Knowing that bullying is going to happen to you in some form or another is not frightening if you are prepared for it. I know I will be mocked because of my name It is going to happen I have some phrases ready, yes like Hitler, no like the founder of Adidas, or the inventor of the saxophone, or like Adolf Halis the man after whom I am named.
People online reacted to the article saying that the mother deserves to be “smacked on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.” To which I would say ”do not shoot the dog!” which is a title of a book just to be clear I am not calling the mother a dog. The book talks about positive reinforcement do you see positive results or do you see psychosis from such behaviour.
Names will be teased, as will nationality, accent, glasses are they all meant to be changed too? Or hidden and make an identity crisis. We need to stop discriminating and begin accepting!
This event reminded me about the Johnny Cash song “A boy named Sue.” I never realised the history behind the song. Johnny Cash wrote the music to a poem “a boy named sue” written by Shel Silverstein. Silverstein was inspired to write the poem because of his friend Jean Shepard who was often teased for his feminine-sounding name. The boy named Sue is also in reference to the lawyer Sue K. Hicks who was named Sue after his mother who died during while giving birth. Sue said that he always has a comical inclination about his name and did not find it a problem to be teased because of it. He further stated that he spoke at over 800 murder cases but the most publicity he got was because his name is Sue. It is not because his name is Sue that he became a judge, it is because he worked hard. Having a unique name is not always attention seeking behaviour of the parents, and it is not a cruel thing for parents to love their children and give them unique interesting names which those children would identify with and even love.
I would like to say well done to Traci Redford and thank you for speaking up about this you are brave to do this and are bringing awareness about a serious issue. It serves as a teaching moment for parents that we need to be brave and teach our kids to be brave and ready to talk up. Also, well done to Southwest airlines for being humble enough to apologise.
https://www.boredpanda.com/daughter-name-shaming-southwest-airlines-traci-redford/?
https://offspring.lifehacker.com/what-to-say-to-little-kids-instead-of-say-sorry-1819288365
https://www.insideedition.com/mom-says-southwest-airlines-employee-made-fun-daughter-abcdes-name-48826
https://www.peninsulagrouplimited.com/blog/different-forms-discrimination/
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/how-baby-names-got-so-weird/
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193564
https://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/books/article113697574.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/12/archives/johnny-cash-is-indebted-to-a-judge-named-sue.html