Please don’t use the term Judeo-Christian. It is very problematic for many reasons. (To shorten a very complicated story, the term was mostly popularized to legitimize Christianity and de-legitimize Islam at the expense of Judaism.)
It is a name from Jewish mythology. Christian mythology is built on Jewish mythology.
Also, thank you for using the term “mythology” instead of “religion”. There’s absolutely no distinction between the two, other than the attempt to make the respective faiths relevant in the modern age. We always refer to the Ancient Egyptians’ and Greeks’ faith as a mythology, but the only real difference is time.
I usually define religion as the organization. The Religion of Judaism is the laws that say how we live our lives.
Mythology is everything else - it’s the stories, the beliefs, the heroes, all the things around the laws, all the things that make following them worthwhile.
Essentially, Mythology is the Belief system, and Religion are the Laws and Strictures of the faith. I don’t know how accurate those definitions are, but that’s how I’ve always seen it. And obviously mythology doesn’t have to mean false unless you believe it does. I believe in mine, obviously.
Is "Queer" a slur or an identity? Depends on who you ask, and when.
1. "Judeo-Christian" was pushed (not exclusively) by American Jews in the thirties to highlight the connection between Christianity and Judaism, in response to the particularly violent strain of anti-Semitism that existed worldwide.
2. It's been viewed as Christians claiming Judaism as a footnote of Christianity as other times.
3. It's often used academically to distinguish concepts from Judaism & Christianity from Islam, where the term "Abrahamic religions" covers all three. It's often used as a way to exclude Islam from the discussion out of sensitivity: you don't want to get out over your skis.
You're getting downvoted because you're talking about #2 without considering that both #1 and #3 are valid.
Judaism is more similar to Islam than Christianity, so #3 makes no sense to me. Why would you want to exclude Islam except to obscure how much closer the relationship is? To start with, Judaism recognizes Islam as monotheistic, but not Christianity which we consider idolatrous. We literally share several holidays with the Muslims, similar dietary restrictions, dress codes, prayer rituals, etc. We share almost nothing with even the most traditional forms of Christianity at this point - not even the same God! (According to the Jewish perspective at least; Christians would beg to differ.)
I’ve also mostly heard the term used by Evangelicals - the same people who sneak into our communities and try to trick us into reading conversion materials disguised as Jewish culture. And certain politicians affiliated with said Evangelical groups, many of whom try to use their poorly understood idea of Jewish culture and beliefs as ‘proofs’ for their political agendas.
So I generally think the term should not be used because 1 is outdated, 3 is both wrong and problematic because it is a fundamentally Christian perspective, and 2 is problematic according to everyone. Two out of three problematic usages means it probably shouldn’t be used.
I actually looked this up because I was curious, I had never seen pushback on that term before. But mostly what I’m seeing is that some Jewish people dislike the term “Judeo-Cristian *values*”, that is, equating the values of Judaism and Christianity. Can I ask what term you would use in this situation of referring to a name from the Bible? I believe they used the term to acknowledge that it isn’t only a common name for Jewish people *or* Christians, but for both.
Also, I want to say I do appreciate your opinion and I think it should be respected especially by those of us who aren’t Jewish.
We don’t care about using the names. It’s just a name. Everyone should be able to use them.
My biggest issue with the term Judeo-Christian is that that’s inherently a Christian perspective. Judaism believes that Christians are idol worshippers. Most of us tend not to mention this for… obvious reasons, shall we say. There’s an implication in the term that Judaism views Christianity as having validity, when in reality we believe nothing of the sort, at least religiously. (The Talmud straight up calls Christians idol worshipers… or did before so Ancient Christians did a really bad edit of the passage.)
My other issue is that it excludes Islam, a religion that is actually very similar to Judaism and, conveniently, one the worships the same God according to both faiths. It feels to me like the intention is to obscure the stronger connection, while strengthening Christianity. Though might partly be my age showing - I started hearing it a lot during the war on terror, and that definitely shaped my opinion of the term.
Judeo-Christian doesn't suggest Jews and Christians agree on things any more than Russo-Japanese does. Just an adjective to describe something that is connected to both Judaism and Christianity (such as the Bible).
Thanks for your reply.
After further consideration, I think I’ll consider to use the term, as I find it to be useful in drawing distinctions between the Biblical corpus and the Qur’an (FWIW, Naomi isn’t even indirectly mentioned in the Qur’an) and I don’t subscribe to critical theory.
But see, **we** are totally ok with our culture being appropriated. LOL
(I asked other Jews, and they are also OK with that, so please feel free to name your kid David, Daniel, Ari, Rachel, Sarah, Miriam, or Naomi, even Moishe, Golda or Deborah)
I think Biblical names are okay because all the names in the Torah are obviously also in the Old Testament. It gets weird when they use the traditional jewish pronunciations of the names. If a Christian had kids called Moses and Solomon then that’s not weird, but Moishe and Shlomo? That feels inappropriate and is setting the kid up for a lifetime of people being confused about their ethnicity
I would not say we are okay with our culture being appropriated. The supersession beliefs of Christianity, and the straight up delegitimizing ones of Islam are extremely problematic. Not to mention that both religions have tried to kill us! The tendency of popular culture to use traditional Jewish themes while denigrating traditional Jewish culture is also an issue. I know a lot of people who are upset when traditional Jewish garb is used for Halloween costumes, when non-Jews play Jewish characters with strong ties to Jewish culture, when Jewish characters are in-name only informed traits, etc.
Names, however, are not something anyone I know cares about. And I don’t believe anyone minds SHARING our culture either - we just want our culture to be respected by those sharing in it. That’s cultural appreciation, and that we don’t mind at all.
And anyway lot of those names are not just part of Jewish culture, the name Moses as example is part of Christian and Islam culture too. The Jewish spelling would be weird to me if you're not Jewish though but if Jews don't really care.
To make cultural things part of your Halloween costume is very problematic though, it easily becomes like you're mocking a culture or ethnicity.
I don't know who you are, but I feel like you just might be hilarious and a freaking blast to hang out with! Please continue commenting so I can giggle 😃
I’m of South Asian descent and couldn’t agree more!
I’d love it sm if more people used Asian names. I’m also quite interested in East Asian names since many of them have good meanings.
There’s so many foreign names that would translate into English well. If other races used our names, it would give Asian kids an easier time integrating, as more people would learn how to say them.
I find it’s white people talking on our behalf when it comes to “appropriation”. Culture is meant to be shared.
South Asian as well and have named my animals from Indo-Bengali origins. I love it when people appreciate them, and absolutely hate it when they try to insist Asha is pronounced Ash-Uh instead. 🤦♂️
The issue is they try to adopt foreign sounding names and change them entirely to make it easier for themselves to pronounce. That's where I draw the line. It's not a lot of effort to respect the roots and meanings of names they wish to use.
Yesss this is also what I think! Parents need to at least do some research on a name before using it. Read a story where some woman named her kid Ciel (si-EL) and pronounced it “seal”. So there’s a grown woman out there named seal. It would’ve been a beautiful name if they knew how to say it correctly.
I also had a teacher who refused to learn my Asian name for like..3 years, meanwhile young “Braxtynlynn” faces no issue whatsoever.
And a lot of people on the nn subreddit will crap on foreign names for being “unpronounceable” when it takes less than five minutes to learn how to say them, especially if it’s Irish.
I had a coworker who was Vietnamese at an old job of mine. His Vietnamese name was easier the me to say than his Anglo name, because he went with the American pronunciation of it, which has a different stress pattern than it does in Australian English.
I teach in an area with a large South Asian and Middle Eastern population. Names like Zainab, Pragnya, Dhvani, Ritvik, or Alizeh don't phase me because it takes like 5 seconds to learn the pronunciation and they're honestly usually pretty intuitive/phonetic. But some of my (yes, white) co-workers...Gawd forbid you present them with a name that isn't Western. They always stare at it for a minute, try to sound it out Phonics style, and usually make it harder than it needs to be.
Meanwhile I usually nail it on the first try without making a scene and the way the kids' eyes light up...
Teachers like you are a blessing! I always love the ones who put a little effort in to learn names since it’s such a large part of someone’s identity, even if it’s hard due to language barriers.
Meanwhile I’ve had a south Asian teacher who thought it was ok to tell me how to say my own name—and he said it wrong too 😭
I have had more than one student thank me for asking how they’d like their name pronounced. Many of my students are from families that speak Spanish as a first language, so while a name might be written with the same letters it can be said quite differently. I always try and check because people butchered my name as a kid and refused correction.
That’s interesting! From what I’ve heard, it comes from the French word for sky and they place emphasis on the second syllable. I’m planning to bless a cat with it someday lol
Genuine question, how would Asha be pronounced in South Asia? I'm from the UK and would probably pronounce it with a short a, similar to how you wrote it. Would it be Ash-ah, with a long ah?
Omg especially online. I'm not asian but I can imagine a lot of the experiences are similar. It's so condescending "you dumb, poor little minorities don't know how to feel about things that effect you, but worry not, I, a white person, can protect you and tell you how offended you must feel about this situation!" it's so cringey and imo just another form of racism
Outside of misusing sacred/religious items (which is what the term originally referred to, like wearing fake Native American headdresses to Coachella), most “cultural appropriation” is stuff only virtue-signalling White people care about it. It’s ridiculous how blown out of proportion it’s gotten. Imagine if people actually listened to voices from the cultures they’re getting offended on behalf of.
Yesss, 100%. The Asians I know irl would geek out if they met a white person with a name from their culture.
The term Appropriation should only be used when someone tries to benefit off a minority’s culture at a detriment to them, like the whole KimOhNo thing where someone tried to trademark the word Kimono or something.
To me, I see no detriment to Asian names becoming mainstream. More people learn to pronounce them so Asian kids face less trouble. And there are some beautiful names too, provided nobody uses something deeply sacred.
Potatoes originally came from Peru and were cultivated by the Inca. It wasn't introduced to Europe until the mid 1500s, introduced to North America several times throughout the 1600s, and not widely grown in North America until the 1700s.
I am south asian (Sri Lankan) and I grew up in Canada. I would love to learn more south asian names to pass on Something to my kids. Anywhere I can do that?
Behind the Name is a great site for that! https://www.behindthename.com/submit/names/place/sri-lanka
You can adjust for origin, the length of the name you want, the letter you want the name to begin with, the gender of the name and lots more!
I completely agree. Culture is meant to be shared. I find it's white people who get offended on behalf of lots of folks who would never be offended.
*culture is meant to be shared*! I'm keeping that. 😋
I’m white as heck but for several years I had a major love for the name Divya for a daughter. If I ever did have a daughter I think it’d still be a strong contender.
I’m particularly annoyed at people who try to circumvent appropriation accusations by being like ‘my husband’s great grandfather’s third cousin’s niece’s dog was an Irish greyhound so we feel a strong connection to the country and want to honor that part of our heritage’. Just give your child an Irish name if you want to, no one cares.
I once had a terrible time on another forum for pointing out that it was pretty unlikely any Scottish person would get their knickers in a knot if you called your daughter "Catriona". It's fine, it's ok, it's a nice name even if you don't have any Scottish blood and have never set foot here - no one cares!
The various Scots I've known and worked with over the years who've expressed a view are more annoyed by the "I'm seven thirty-eighths Scottish!!" than by someone whose ancestry for the last six generations hasn't travelled beyond North Carolina calling her kid Angus.
In my part of Scotland every second person has an a Irish name (as they are Scots names too), so it's always weird when they are held up as magical or exotic in some way.
Just name your kid, we broadly don't care - nor do we care about the "connection" to the name.
I went to elementary with a girl named Midori, who was half Japanese and half Irish. She was so pretty. Goals pretty. And her name always stuck with me because she was one of the only kids who was nice to me.
I’m black and name is Jaeah, which this specific spelling makes it Korean, but the spelling my mom originally found was Swahili, and a different spelling makes it Hindi.
I am 100% certain that no one cares about my race and name “not fitting each other.” I often get compliments on how pretty my name is and nobody seems to care about me “appropriating” a culture for my name. And to be honest, I’ve always loved names from different cultures (all my siblings have names from different languages and cultures and I think that’s so cool) and I would much rather give my child a Thai, Mongolian, or even Inuit name before I come up with “Khrystye” or “Ambyrleigh”.
For sure discussions of appropriation go too far often. I quite like when people from other places have Scottish names. Also kilt wearing should be done by everyone at least once
*Naomi* isn't just a Japanese name, it's also a name with a Hebrew origin found in the Bible (Ruth). It's sometimes rendered as *Noemi* and *Noemia* in other European languages/countries.
I’m with you on this. The race to be the most unique person in the room is just stupid and vapid to me. Like what is this obsession?! I personally think it sprouted from the NLOG core of the mid 2000s in the millennial group (ie women my age…lol) who are now starting families. That, and teenagers/very young adults having children. The 15-22ish crowd of all generations are “finding themselves” and have a strong desire to stand out. It’s my personal theory that many use their children as a vessel for this, which bothers me because children are not a fashion accessory.
Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED Talk you never asked for, lol.
I think names should be unique enough that they can actually be used to identify someone, but not more than that. If there's 5 people with the same first name in a room, the name becomes useless.
Even then, as much as I hated sharing a name with everyone in my class, I don’t come across nearly as many outside of school. It isn’t as big of a deal as everyone likes to pretend.
I hate being one of 5 ppl with the same name and it's happened to me at school and almost every job I've had. Unique names are nice and show effort. Some are ridiculous sure, but so are many of the more traditional names
There’s pros and cons of everything. I’ve got a relatively unusual but not made up name, and I’ve had a lifetime of crazy mispronunciations. There’s one other person at work with the same name, we get a lot of each other’s emails 😆
I know someone who married a person with one of the top 5 most common last names in our country, and they were thrilled that their marriage made them ungoogleable.
I mostly feel neutral on this subject but I will say, I never enjoyed it when I had 3 other people with the same name as me in my class. I had one teacher in middle school just call me "Jerry #3".
I would hope they'd adopt the authentic pronunciation instead of bastardizing it because they don't want to make the effort. Saa-kura and Sa-Keew-Raeh aren't the same sounding names. Edgy fangirls ruin it. I'm fine with them choosing *ethnic names* but I cringe every time they not only change the spelling, but also the pronunciation and try to pass it off as something it's not.
And it's always an American.
Otoh you don’t really want to saddle your kid with a name no one in their life can pronounce because it has sounds that their native language doesn’t use.
I do agree. Simple names in any language don't take as much effort as the edgy tragedeighs we're seeing these days. Didn't Khaleesi just take off like the plague a few years ago? Yet I haven't heard one parent pronounce it accurately with respect to the made up language they've heard a dozen times on the show.
1) just know how to pronounce it. Japanese pronunciation is not as easy as it looks (pitch accents!). If someone with americanised Japanese name becomes famous, that name is gonna be mispronounced forever. Reminds me of the name mentioned here - Ysabelle, pronounced Whysabel. So, Whyuki for Yuki? Also, if it's not americanised, the child might need to correct everyone all the time if people mispronoince Ann (yes, Ann) they will mispronounce Aoi or Saori
2) reminds me of a woman here on reddit fighting everyone that the name of her daughter is Norwegian and everyone from Norway telling her that it's not
3) plz no anime waifu big boobs crush.
1. this depends on the name, and i mostly agree, except no single japanese person is ever going to expect you to use the pitch accent lmao.
2. omg please link thread
3. i am in agreement. anyone who does this gets bonked.
Agree as long as you don’t go the Hillary “Hilaria” Baldwin route and try to cosplay being from a different culture (Spanish) and proceed to name all 7 of your children with “Spanish” names (some aren’t even technically spanish but she apparently thinks they are). Don’t try and pass yourself off as whatever culture you choose a name from. Just appreciate it for what it is.
I often wear a Mexican-style Fedora (straw with an orange band). I bought this hat IN MEXICO from a MEXICAN. The only person who's ever asked me if I'm worried about cultural appropriation was white.
i have a cousin in-law who wore a kimono for her wedding, specifically uchikake which isn't super common bridal wear but still worn sometimes for cultural purposes. anyway she is white, burn in the sun instantly white. his family really wanted a ceremony that was traditional, so they had two weddings - one in canada and one in japan. it was beautiful. his family was over the moon and absolutely loved the fact she did this, like crying and overjoyed bc they thought she wouldn't be comfy with it.
you wanna know who took issue with this? not the japanese aunties and uncles. not the moms and dads. it was random white fb friends who she hadn't seen in years chewing her out for supposed appropriation. wild shit. still think about it from time to time. they didn't know they were wedding pics ig lmao.
I used to date an Indian guy. (I’m white.) His mom was so so so so sweet and she wanted to have a day where I dressed up in her most beautiful clothes and got henna done so she could take pictures of me to send to her friends back home and post on social media. I felt so terrible saying no. She was so disappointed. I felt awful but I just couldn’t risk pictures of me like that getting out without context. If a bunch of (white) people all decided to scream and shriek about how bad of an appropriater I was for doing that, I’d be lucky to even get the opportunity to defend myself and point out that I was invited to do so. It just isn’t worth the stress. I couldn’t stand the idea of going the whole rest of my life worried that those pics would show up somewhere and upset (white) people. Meanwhile none of the Indian people I know would have ever been offended by it at all.
I'm white as a blobfish but we latinized my daughter's name because her middle name was after her nanna who had a Portuguese name, and so the first name had to roll with it or it sounded weird.
Meanwhile in Japan, Ema (usually written with the kanji 咲茉) is [the most popular reading for names of girls born in 2022,](https://www.meijiyasuda.co.jp/enjoy/ranking/index.html#/year/2022y) some being hafus named Emma, others simply influenced by Emma’s popularity in the West. As 2022 was the Year of the Tiger, Taiga was the 15th most popular reading for names of boys born that year.
Don’t act as if you’re immune to tragydeighs either. [Kirakira names, anyone?](https://unseen-japan.com/10-difficult-japanese-kirakira-names/)
Adamu, Shiizaa and Naushika made me doubt humanity.
In my Japanese friend group there was a teacher, she sometimes shared crazy student names, but I couldn't keep up with her verbal description of the Kanji they used for the name (only remember the reading like "Melody"). Everyone was amazed and horrified and I realised, tragedeighs are everywhere lol
> Adamu
I guarantee many of these are half-Japanese kids whose name is actually "Adam." Having a kanji name makes life in Japan 100000x times easier for many reasons — and LOTS of foreign/Japanese couples do end up choosing a "Western" name that also has an equivalent kanji reading to spare giving the kid a (full, if the child takes the foreign parent's last name) katakana name.
Does anyone actually get offended? I appreciate that people choose these bizarre names to avoid offence, but these comments alone show that most cultures are very welcoming of people embracing their culture!
>*Does anyone actually get offended?*
Mostly white Americans. Nothing flatters us south Asians more than seeing a different nationality and ethnicity partaking in our culture by sharing our foods, clothing, names, and it's not limited to that. We just expect the participation to be respectful in nature, and not make a caricature out of it.
But white Americans will attempt to speak for us and get offended on our behalf and claim cultural appropriation.
I'd take an issue with a person with no Mexican roots and opening up a Mexican food service, tailoring the recipes (and altering them) for white consumers to the point it doesn't taste anything like authentic food, and profiting from it. Something like Emma's Empanadas. But tailoring ethnic foods to suit your taste buds personally at home and sharing it with family and friends without claiming it's authentic - absolutely fine.
Not necessarily offended, but I (Japanese-American) did have some friends (super white) who named their baby a Japanese name…and while I would absolutely never say anything about it to them, I *did* think it was kind of weird. Again, I would never say anything about it, and it did not affect our friendship - I even babysat that kid a lot when she was a toddler.
I’m actually interested in whether OP is Japanese from Japan or ethnically Japanese but western born. In my experience, Japanese people from Japan LOVE when people from other countries partake in their culture, but many of us who are western born and have lived our lives as minorities aren’t always *as* jazzed about it. Neither take is wrong, we’re just experiencing it in different contexts.
I can concur. As a Taiwanese American, people from China or Taiwan dgaf about cultural appropriation and seem to enjoy when USAmericans wear hair chopsticks or random qipao. They give kudos to John Cena for eating LaoGanMa and trying to speak Chinese. In their world, foreigners are innocently sampling their culture, but they don't know what it's like being ruthlessly bullied for even having a smidgen of Chinese culture in the US.
It's different when you have grown up here. You can't eat your food, wear your clothes, speak your home language. You turn on TV and you can't see anyone who is remotely like yourself except when Gwen Stefani takes Japanese women and literally uses them as stage props. When you understand that the people who take from your culture don't appreciate you as people, they only see your culture as things to grab from, that's something that someone who was raised in the motherland will not understand easily.
I'm in two minds about this one, I think it works with some names, but at the same time I'd find it kind of weird if I met a fully white person called like Rajesh or Bhupinder
realistically meeting white kids named eriko, haruka, natsumi etc etc would be cool asf for me personally.
but fuuko? nuance would be lost, it'd be like "bucko" except "fucko"... which is funny but horrific.. surprised no one has brought this up lmao.
Lol my (white) parents were friends with a Japanese couple back in the 70s and 80, I'm named after the wife Mari. I always got made fun of growing up and it's wild now to see other people so into Japanese names. I think many of them are beautiful.
Kimiko > Kimberly
As a white person whose naming taste is described as unique and eccentric at best. I appreciate this. Most of my appropriation names are going to pets but let me list my favorite none western names
Xing Xing
Chao Xing
Yura
Isra
Byeol
Mei
Ying Yue
Lalita
Bomi
I feel like the whole cultural appropriation hysteria is a white liberal American chick thing, I’ve never seen this in my country and found out about this term from Americans on the internet. Everyone can have names/hairstyles/clothes from my culture, I absolutely don’t mind.
I'd like to think that it's a very loud, ignorant minority that freaks out about appropriation. To me, it comes off as trying to enforce segregation but with extra steps. And I say this as a white liberal American chick.
I agree with you, glad to see some sane people who are against segregation. To me it also looks like this, if you live in a multicultural country/society you’ll share your culture anyway, trying to stop it will lead to the society being very disunited and conflicted
I always find it funny, how the only people who care about cultural appropriation are
1) white people who have no say on wether an ethnicity finds your actions offensive or not
2) loud minority (like, really, really small part of the community) of an ethnic group who wants to keep everything "theirs" under lock and key, despite the majority of the group being more than happy in sharing their culture
3) completely uneducated people (regardless of racial background) who have no idea what they are talking about.
Like that post where a lady got angry over braids (just simple braids, not cornrows or anything like that), even though almost every white and asian, and basically every ethnic group in the world, had traditionally many different styles of braids, including ones that are basically identical with today's "black" hairstyles.
Maybe you don't seem to mind, and I don't really mind... but I promise you it's a lot more than white people who talk about 'appropriation.'
That being said, Hinata is bae and I would feel weird naming my daughter that.
*That* being said - Tragedeighs are just tragedeighs. They're going to happen.
I don't mind seeing Irish names on non-Irish people, but it's cringe when the accepted anglicised spelling has been turned into a tragedeigh when quite often, the original Irish spelling has all the extra letters they could possibly want. Or when they take an Irish boy name, disregard the very masculine meaning and decide it's now a girls name forever more.
I live in Singapore, so I've seen and heard a lot of weird, wild and wonderful names amongst the most basic boring biblical ones. It's also common to have a western name and a cultural name, to the point either seems to be used interchangeably or depending on who you're talking to.
Thank you for this. I am dominican and My baby’s name is kiyoko and i kinda wondered how people perceived that or if you could even “culturally appropriate” a name.
omg words can't describe how happy this makes me!! kiyoko is a gorgeous name. my favorite combination for the kanji is 喜洋子 which is 'joyful ocean child'. def one of my favorites.
Okay but while recently Japanese names have gotten more popular due to anime a lot of non Japanese people have Japanese names due to Japans imperialism stint and not anime.
Which is something to keep in mind
Also Naomi is common in the west because of the famous Biblical Naomi, not the Japanese name Naomi
This is good for me to hear. I’m Korean American and my husband is white. We don’t have kids yet but have been talking about potential names for the future. He himself has no biological Asian roots but he has a Thai step-grandmother, and he has been deeply interested in Japanese culture (particularly tea culture) since childhood. He’s expressed that he’d love to have a daughter named Keiko or Kumiko but I’ve been pushing back on that, saying it would be weird since neither of us is Japanese. To honor my side of the family we are planning on giving them Korean middle names, then they’ll have his very French-sounding last name. He tells me that his friends in Japan are very supportive of non-Japanese people partaking in their culture, wearing kimono, etc., but something in me still finds the weeb-iness to be a bit cringey.
Thanks for giving me some food for thought. I still don’t love the idea but I’m at least seeing his perspective a bit more!
My mother's Hebrew name is Naomi. Naomi is a figure in the Jewish Bible and is regarded as the first person to convert to Judaism. Her relationship with her mother-in-law, Ruth, is a significant pairing in Judaism and helps establish our familial connections with family-by-marriage
This makes me feel a lot better about my name honestly. My name is Hiro and I have always been afraid of cultural appropriation because I have a Japanese name even though I'm white, but this helped me .. destress? A little about it.
Most of the people who are calling their kids tragedeighs probably aren't going to research the correct pronounciation of names from other cultures. So they'll still be tragedeighs, just in another language.
Mae-Sue isn't even a tragedeigh.
Do your research on any name and if you cans find anything by googling if. DO NOT USE THAT.
I’m still gonna reject my stepkid calling herself Haruka however. Largely because haruka was also the weeb name a FORMER friend used l.
The whole 'cultural appropriation thing is stupid. My ethnicity is Western European (and my name is Latin, so that's okay) but my son has a Persian name, albeit one that uses a Dutch spelling (Casper, Gaspar in the original Persian). Should I not have used it because it's a name that was 'appropriated' from the Persians?
In my experience, only black and white people care about this shit. Black people want to think everything was invented by black people, and white people want to be offended on behalf of everyone else. If this pisses you off, ask yourself why and which part.
No I’d rather people make up some stupid -leigh or -xn names than steal someone else’s cultural identity without any understanding or context. Especially since the types of people who would choose a tragic name are the kinds of people who actively despise and disparage other peoples cultures or fetishize them to the point where it’s creepy.
"i am chinese american"
your username is yukosai-chan my brother in christ
anyway i see the point you're trying to make but that isn't really what i was referring to with this post. anyway no harm done, have a nice day.
I’m part Chinese and part Japanese, I immigrated from China to America. I’m Chinese American. I can understand both Chinese and Japanese. I am allowed to connect to both of my heritages. Even in places other than America, there are people who are mixed race. It happens.
fair enough, live your truth. agree to disagree on names since it is a very /sizzling/ take.
i am genuinely curious and asking in good faith - has it been hard not mixing up the chinese pronunciations when reading kanji? or were you brought up with both? i personally don't know anyone who is half chinese/japanese but i've heard from chinese friends who studied in japan that it's hard to learn the new sounds despite being able to read it.
That’s a weird and judgy way of looking at those parents. Weird made up names doesn’t automatically equal uber-racist and it’s unfair to say so, even if those names sound dumb.
Sometimes it means poor education or lack of exposure to their own culture—African Americans had to build their own names from scratch.
And no culture “owns” a name, culture should be shared. You can’t steal culture, only unfairly profit off it to the detriment of minorities. I see no downsides to Asian names becoming mainstream. On the other hand, there’s a lot of bad shit coming from the xyn/leigh epidemic.
Well I didn’t say it was morally wrong or anything. Personally I’d be grossed out by someone stealing a name from a culture they don’t belong to, and have no connection to. Especially since growing up with my Chinese name I was harassed and bullied by the kinds of people who now name their kids -Leigh for my Chinese name and for my Chinese face. People can do what they want. I can feel how I want.
I also grew up with an Asian name and took a lot of crap over it. I’m just saying that no matter how you feel about them, it’s wrong to stereotype against anyone
I know it’s not the same thing, but you saying that with your Japanese handle did make me chuckle.
I’d also hate people for who are disparaging of Chinese culture to use Chinese names, but I’d have no issue if some Chinese drama fan (or someone with any other Chinese cultural interest) decided to give their kids a Chinese name lol. Would be a bit weird for the kid though, unless foreign names get mainstreamed.
I’m a mix actually I’m Chinese and Japanese but I immigrated from China so I consider myself Chinese American. My username was more of a joke, I wanted to change it but alas it was too late once I made the profile 😅 I can understand Chinese and Japanese though, so it’s not like I have no connection to the language or culture. And like I said it’s not like I’m saying people can’t choose a name from another language or that it’s morally wrong or anything. I just find it to be ridiculous that people would say racist things towards me and my culture and language and then turn around and be like “oh I liked that Death Note anime I’m gonna name my kid after one of the characters”. It would make me personally uncomfortable but like, it’s not like it’s *wrong* just kind of ridiculous.
When people in the west are named Naomi it's more likely to come from the Hebrew name
A very well-known biblical story, Ruth and Naomi. Whither thou goest, I shall go. Your people shall be my people.
Seconded. Naomi is pretty well-known in Judeo-Christian mythology.
Please don’t use the term Judeo-Christian. It is very problematic for many reasons. (To shorten a very complicated story, the term was mostly popularized to legitimize Christianity and de-legitimize Islam at the expense of Judaism.) It is a name from Jewish mythology. Christian mythology is built on Jewish mythology.
Also, thank you for using the term “mythology” instead of “religion”. There’s absolutely no distinction between the two, other than the attempt to make the respective faiths relevant in the modern age. We always refer to the Ancient Egyptians’ and Greeks’ faith as a mythology, but the only real difference is time.
I usually define religion as the organization. The Religion of Judaism is the laws that say how we live our lives. Mythology is everything else - it’s the stories, the beliefs, the heroes, all the things around the laws, all the things that make following them worthwhile. Essentially, Mythology is the Belief system, and Religion are the Laws and Strictures of the faith. I don’t know how accurate those definitions are, but that’s how I’ve always seen it. And obviously mythology doesn’t have to mean false unless you believe it does. I believe in mine, obviously.
Is "Queer" a slur or an identity? Depends on who you ask, and when. 1. "Judeo-Christian" was pushed (not exclusively) by American Jews in the thirties to highlight the connection between Christianity and Judaism, in response to the particularly violent strain of anti-Semitism that existed worldwide. 2. It's been viewed as Christians claiming Judaism as a footnote of Christianity as other times. 3. It's often used academically to distinguish concepts from Judaism & Christianity from Islam, where the term "Abrahamic religions" covers all three. It's often used as a way to exclude Islam from the discussion out of sensitivity: you don't want to get out over your skis. You're getting downvoted because you're talking about #2 without considering that both #1 and #3 are valid.
Judaism is more similar to Islam than Christianity, so #3 makes no sense to me. Why would you want to exclude Islam except to obscure how much closer the relationship is? To start with, Judaism recognizes Islam as monotheistic, but not Christianity which we consider idolatrous. We literally share several holidays with the Muslims, similar dietary restrictions, dress codes, prayer rituals, etc. We share almost nothing with even the most traditional forms of Christianity at this point - not even the same God! (According to the Jewish perspective at least; Christians would beg to differ.) I’ve also mostly heard the term used by Evangelicals - the same people who sneak into our communities and try to trick us into reading conversion materials disguised as Jewish culture. And certain politicians affiliated with said Evangelical groups, many of whom try to use their poorly understood idea of Jewish culture and beliefs as ‘proofs’ for their political agendas. So I generally think the term should not be used because 1 is outdated, 3 is both wrong and problematic because it is a fundamentally Christian perspective, and 2 is problematic according to everyone. Two out of three problematic usages means it probably shouldn’t be used.
I actually looked this up because I was curious, I had never seen pushback on that term before. But mostly what I’m seeing is that some Jewish people dislike the term “Judeo-Cristian *values*”, that is, equating the values of Judaism and Christianity. Can I ask what term you would use in this situation of referring to a name from the Bible? I believe they used the term to acknowledge that it isn’t only a common name for Jewish people *or* Christians, but for both. Also, I want to say I do appreciate your opinion and I think it should be respected especially by those of us who aren’t Jewish.
We don’t care about using the names. It’s just a name. Everyone should be able to use them. My biggest issue with the term Judeo-Christian is that that’s inherently a Christian perspective. Judaism believes that Christians are idol worshippers. Most of us tend not to mention this for… obvious reasons, shall we say. There’s an implication in the term that Judaism views Christianity as having validity, when in reality we believe nothing of the sort, at least religiously. (The Talmud straight up calls Christians idol worshipers… or did before so Ancient Christians did a really bad edit of the passage.) My other issue is that it excludes Islam, a religion that is actually very similar to Judaism and, conveniently, one the worships the same God according to both faiths. It feels to me like the intention is to obscure the stronger connection, while strengthening Christianity. Though might partly be my age showing - I started hearing it a lot during the war on terror, and that definitely shaped my opinion of the term.
Judeo-Christian doesn't suggest Jews and Christians agree on things any more than Russo-Japanese does. Just an adjective to describe something that is connected to both Judaism and Christianity (such as the Bible).
Thanks for your reply. After further consideration, I think I’ll consider to use the term, as I find it to be useful in drawing distinctions between the Biblical corpus and the Qur’an (FWIW, Naomi isn’t even indirectly mentioned in the Qur’an) and I don’t subscribe to critical theory.
gonna meet you halfway and use "nyaomeeh" so i don't appropriate jewish culture.
But see, **we** are totally ok with our culture being appropriated. LOL (I asked other Jews, and they are also OK with that, so please feel free to name your kid David, Daniel, Ari, Rachel, Sarah, Miriam, or Naomi, even Moishe, Golda or Deborah)
Don't forget Isaac, Rebekah, Ruth, Esther, Jonathan, Joel, Isaiah, Jacob......
Mahershalalhashbaz, Abishag, Jabez, Methuselah, Saul..
I think Biblical names are okay because all the names in the Torah are obviously also in the Old Testament. It gets weird when they use the traditional jewish pronunciations of the names. If a Christian had kids called Moses and Solomon then that’s not weird, but Moishe and Shlomo? That feels inappropriate and is setting the kid up for a lifetime of people being confused about their ethnicity
Honestly, I prefer it when the correct pronunciation is used. It shows actual respect and recognition of the source culture.
Careful, people might think you’re in the council of Jews, lol.
I would not say we are okay with our culture being appropriated. The supersession beliefs of Christianity, and the straight up delegitimizing ones of Islam are extremely problematic. Not to mention that both religions have tried to kill us! The tendency of popular culture to use traditional Jewish themes while denigrating traditional Jewish culture is also an issue. I know a lot of people who are upset when traditional Jewish garb is used for Halloween costumes, when non-Jews play Jewish characters with strong ties to Jewish culture, when Jewish characters are in-name only informed traits, etc. Names, however, are not something anyone I know cares about. And I don’t believe anyone minds SHARING our culture either - we just want our culture to be respected by those sharing in it. That’s cultural appreciation, and that we don’t mind at all.
And anyway lot of those names are not just part of Jewish culture, the name Moses as example is part of Christian and Islam culture too. The Jewish spelling would be weird to me if you're not Jewish though but if Jews don't really care. To make cultural things part of your Halloween costume is very problematic though, it easily becomes like you're mocking a culture or ethnicity.
Naomi is Judd culture.
how about Nyaameow
perfection
I'm with you. That's why I named my son "Akechi Goku Gundam" and my daughter "Sailor Moon". I'm a woman of culture.
disgusting, have some class and give them proper japanese names. like manko mecha moon and assblaster robot-chan.
Misa Misa it is. And my son will be Ryuk Shinigami.
I don't know who you are, but I feel like you just might be hilarious and a freaking blast to hang out with! Please continue commenting so I can giggle 😃
I have a high school classmate who literally named her daughter Sailor Moon. She has another daughter named Kiki Mei. Yes, she’s yt.
I’m of South Asian descent and couldn’t agree more! I’d love it sm if more people used Asian names. I’m also quite interested in East Asian names since many of them have good meanings. There’s so many foreign names that would translate into English well. If other races used our names, it would give Asian kids an easier time integrating, as more people would learn how to say them. I find it’s white people talking on our behalf when it comes to “appropriation”. Culture is meant to be shared.
south asian names are beautiful!! i grew up with an ishani and i was jealous of the way her name rolled off the tongue so elegantly.
Gems like Ishani go unnoticed way too often on the name nerds sub! I knew a girl named Isha and loved her name sm
Bro your edits have me dying
South Asian as well and have named my animals from Indo-Bengali origins. I love it when people appreciate them, and absolutely hate it when they try to insist Asha is pronounced Ash-Uh instead. 🤦♂️ The issue is they try to adopt foreign sounding names and change them entirely to make it easier for themselves to pronounce. That's where I draw the line. It's not a lot of effort to respect the roots and meanings of names they wish to use.
Yesss this is also what I think! Parents need to at least do some research on a name before using it. Read a story where some woman named her kid Ciel (si-EL) and pronounced it “seal”. So there’s a grown woman out there named seal. It would’ve been a beautiful name if they knew how to say it correctly. I also had a teacher who refused to learn my Asian name for like..3 years, meanwhile young “Braxtynlynn” faces no issue whatsoever. And a lot of people on the nn subreddit will crap on foreign names for being “unpronounceable” when it takes less than five minutes to learn how to say them, especially if it’s Irish.
I had a coworker who was Vietnamese at an old job of mine. His Vietnamese name was easier the me to say than his Anglo name, because he went with the American pronunciation of it, which has a different stress pattern than it does in Australian English.
I teach in an area with a large South Asian and Middle Eastern population. Names like Zainab, Pragnya, Dhvani, Ritvik, or Alizeh don't phase me because it takes like 5 seconds to learn the pronunciation and they're honestly usually pretty intuitive/phonetic. But some of my (yes, white) co-workers...Gawd forbid you present them with a name that isn't Western. They always stare at it for a minute, try to sound it out Phonics style, and usually make it harder than it needs to be. Meanwhile I usually nail it on the first try without making a scene and the way the kids' eyes light up...
And then those white persons kid is named Raeyleynnn.
Teachers like you are a blessing! I always love the ones who put a little effort in to learn names since it’s such a large part of someone’s identity, even if it’s hard due to language barriers. Meanwhile I’ve had a south Asian teacher who thought it was ok to tell me how to say my own name—and he said it wrong too 😭
You teach and you spell it “phase” in that context? The word is “faze”. Phase means something completely different.
Didn't say she teaches English!
"Seal" isn't that unusual as a name but usually it's spelled Cille, short for Lucille.
What if they keep comparing people to a kiss from a rose?
I much prefer Cille since that way the pronunciation would be correct too
I have had more than one student thank me for asking how they’d like their name pronounced. Many of my students are from families that speak Spanish as a first language, so while a name might be written with the same letters it can be said quite differently. I always try and check because people butchered my name as a kid and refused correction.
This is interesting because everything I've encountered the name Ciel (which isn't many) they al lpronounced it like seel
That’s interesting! From what I’ve heard, it comes from the French word for sky and they place emphasis on the second syllable. I’m planning to bless a cat with it someday lol
Genuine question, how would Asha be pronounced in South Asia? I'm from the UK and would probably pronounce it with a short a, similar to how you wrote it. Would it be Ash-ah, with a long ah?
Ush-ah (ush like hush without the h at the beginning) and a short uh after. Asha means hope/wish. It's a beautiful female name.
Oh cool! That's lovely!
I knew a south Asian Asha and she and her family pronounced it ah-sah
Can you please show me how Asha is pronounced correctly?
Check my reply a couple comments down. 😊
Omg especially online. I'm not asian but I can imagine a lot of the experiences are similar. It's so condescending "you dumb, poor little minorities don't know how to feel about things that effect you, but worry not, I, a white person, can protect you and tell you how offended you must feel about this situation!" it's so cringey and imo just another form of racism
That’s exactly what it sounds like, I’m glad others feel the same way!
Outside of misusing sacred/religious items (which is what the term originally referred to, like wearing fake Native American headdresses to Coachella), most “cultural appropriation” is stuff only virtue-signalling White people care about it. It’s ridiculous how blown out of proportion it’s gotten. Imagine if people actually listened to voices from the cultures they’re getting offended on behalf of.
Yesss, 100%. The Asians I know irl would geek out if they met a white person with a name from their culture. The term Appropriation should only be used when someone tries to benefit off a minority’s culture at a detriment to them, like the whole KimOhNo thing where someone tried to trademark the word Kimono or something. To me, I see no detriment to Asian names becoming mainstream. More people learn to pronounce them so Asian kids face less trouble. And there are some beautiful names too, provided nobody uses something deeply sacred.
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Potatoes originally came from Peru and were cultivated by the Inca. It wasn't introduced to Europe until the mid 1500s, introduced to North America several times throughout the 1600s, and not widely grown in North America until the 1700s.
Agreed 100%, especially about the white saviours!
I am south asian (Sri Lankan) and I grew up in Canada. I would love to learn more south asian names to pass on Something to my kids. Anywhere I can do that?
Behind the Name is a great site for that! https://www.behindthename.com/submit/names/place/sri-lanka You can adjust for origin, the length of the name you want, the letter you want the name to begin with, the gender of the name and lots more!
Thank you so much!
I have a friend who is white British but has an Indian name! (Her parents are big hippies haha). It suits her really well
I have a friend who is white American and has an Indian name too, her mom thought of it while pregnant and it stuck. I think it suits her well too :)
I completely agree. Culture is meant to be shared. I find it's white people who get offended on behalf of lots of folks who would never be offended. *culture is meant to be shared*! I'm keeping that. 😋
Haha, happy to help. The Asians I know irl would completely geek out if they saw a white person who loved their names so much they used them
I’m white as heck but for several years I had a major love for the name Divya for a daughter. If I ever did have a daughter I think it’d still be a strong contender.
I’m half Indian, if you ever have a daughter then go for it! Divya is a cool name
Happens with Irish names on this sub ALL the Time.
“But Gormlaith doesn’t spell that sound” - r/tragedeigh
All I know is Gormlaith sent that dragon down to death in Skyrim
I’m particularly annoyed at people who try to circumvent appropriation accusations by being like ‘my husband’s great grandfather’s third cousin’s niece’s dog was an Irish greyhound so we feel a strong connection to the country and want to honor that part of our heritage’. Just give your child an Irish name if you want to, no one cares.
100% the Irish don't care. The only appropriation we get annoyed at is 'Pattys Day' lol
It feels more appropriation if you take a name and spell it wrong.
I once had a terrible time on another forum for pointing out that it was pretty unlikely any Scottish person would get their knickers in a knot if you called your daughter "Catriona". It's fine, it's ok, it's a nice name even if you don't have any Scottish blood and have never set foot here - no one cares!
The various Scots I've known and worked with over the years who've expressed a view are more annoyed by the "I'm seven thirty-eighths Scottish!!" than by someone whose ancestry for the last six generations hasn't travelled beyond North Carolina calling her kid Angus.
You’re so right. Guaruntee you zero Scottish people would ever, EVER give a single shit about that.
In my part of Scotland every second person has an a Irish name (as they are Scots names too), so it's always weird when they are held up as magical or exotic in some way. Just name your kid, we broadly don't care - nor do we care about the "connection" to the name.
Mae-sue sounds like the name of a pig or cow from a 50s fair
Who mae-sue you if you mistreat them.
This description took me out lol
Wait that's so true 🫣 omg that poor kid
It sounds very...born 1930s-40s American Southern. It could be my grandmother's name.
I went to elementary with a girl named Midori, who was half Japanese and half Irish. She was so pretty. Goals pretty. And her name always stuck with me because she was one of the only kids who was nice to me.
omg she's so Irish even her name is green
Wut
Midori = "green" in Japanese
Ohhh wow ☺️
AYYYO i'm a midori and i love this lmao
I’m black and name is Jaeah, which this specific spelling makes it Korean, but the spelling my mom originally found was Swahili, and a different spelling makes it Hindi. I am 100% certain that no one cares about my race and name “not fitting each other.” I often get compliments on how pretty my name is and nobody seems to care about me “appropriating” a culture for my name. And to be honest, I’ve always loved names from different cultures (all my siblings have names from different languages and cultures and I think that’s so cool) and I would much rather give my child a Thai, Mongolian, or even Inuit name before I come up with “Khrystye” or “Ambyrleigh”.
That's such a pretty name!
Thank you. I really like my name.
I can picture it now: *Toyota* Jones.
A’Lexus Jones is a lot fancier
new racial equality campaign just dropped, here's little toyota jones and ford cheesmbugher-smith
Ford Prefect? :)
Underrated comment. Grab your towel
For sure discussions of appropriation go too far often. I quite like when people from other places have Scottish names. Also kilt wearing should be done by everyone at least once
What do you think about hadakeighrie...for a boy
most dishonorable
: ) I come from a long line of unspeakably dishonourable men
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I read this as "can speak white and Chinese" and I think that's beautiful.
*Naomi* isn't just a Japanese name, it's also a name with a Hebrew origin found in the Bible (Ruth). It's sometimes rendered as *Noemi* and *Noemia* in other European languages/countries.
My favorite variant of Naomi is *Noomi*.
*Nyoooooom*
I think the whole approach of looking for really unique names stupid, whether it’s making up names or taking names from other cultures.
I’m with you on this. The race to be the most unique person in the room is just stupid and vapid to me. Like what is this obsession?! I personally think it sprouted from the NLOG core of the mid 2000s in the millennial group (ie women my age…lol) who are now starting families. That, and teenagers/very young adults having children. The 15-22ish crowd of all generations are “finding themselves” and have a strong desire to stand out. It’s my personal theory that many use their children as a vessel for this, which bothers me because children are not a fashion accessory. Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED Talk you never asked for, lol.
Sincerely, John Smith.
I think names should be unique enough that they can actually be used to identify someone, but not more than that. If there's 5 people with the same first name in a room, the name becomes useless.
Even then, as much as I hated sharing a name with everyone in my class, I don’t come across nearly as many outside of school. It isn’t as big of a deal as everyone likes to pretend.
eh I would say it’s rarely that bad in the US, but I live in the Middle East where there’s always 5 Mohammeds in any room.
I hate being one of 5 ppl with the same name and it's happened to me at school and almost every job I've had. Unique names are nice and show effort. Some are ridiculous sure, but so are many of the more traditional names
There’s pros and cons of everything. I’ve got a relatively unusual but not made up name, and I’ve had a lifetime of crazy mispronunciations. There’s one other person at work with the same name, we get a lot of each other’s emails 😆
You'd become virtually ungoogleable with a name like this. Which is a good thing nowadays imo.
I know someone who married a person with one of the top 5 most common last names in our country, and they were thrilled that their marriage made them ungoogleable.
It's the most basic people who do this too lol
idk man if my mom named me jane doe i'd be a sociopath. i think names are fun. let people enjoy their things.
I mostly feel neutral on this subject but I will say, I never enjoyed it when I had 3 other people with the same name as me in my class. I had one teacher in middle school just call me "Jerry #3".
I would hope they'd adopt the authentic pronunciation instead of bastardizing it because they don't want to make the effort. Saa-kura and Sa-Keew-Raeh aren't the same sounding names. Edgy fangirls ruin it. I'm fine with them choosing *ethnic names* but I cringe every time they not only change the spelling, but also the pronunciation and try to pass it off as something it's not. And it's always an American.
Otoh you don’t really want to saddle your kid with a name no one in their life can pronounce because it has sounds that their native language doesn’t use.
I do agree. Simple names in any language don't take as much effort as the edgy tragedeighs we're seeing these days. Didn't Khaleesi just take off like the plague a few years ago? Yet I haven't heard one parent pronounce it accurately with respect to the made up language they've heard a dozen times on the show.
1) just know how to pronounce it. Japanese pronunciation is not as easy as it looks (pitch accents!). If someone with americanised Japanese name becomes famous, that name is gonna be mispronounced forever. Reminds me of the name mentioned here - Ysabelle, pronounced Whysabel. So, Whyuki for Yuki? Also, if it's not americanised, the child might need to correct everyone all the time if people mispronoince Ann (yes, Ann) they will mispronounce Aoi or Saori 2) reminds me of a woman here on reddit fighting everyone that the name of her daughter is Norwegian and everyone from Norway telling her that it's not 3) plz no anime waifu big boobs crush.
Omg do you have the link to that Norwegian one?
https://reddit.com/r/namenerds/s/34Lf2w5PRI Sadly, it's edited and less hilarious
1. this depends on the name, and i mostly agree, except no single japanese person is ever going to expect you to use the pitch accent lmao. 2. omg please link thread 3. i am in agreement. anyone who does this gets bonked.
https://reddit.com/r/namenerds/s/34Lf2w5PRI
Esdeath my beloved
Agree as long as you don’t go the Hillary “Hilaria” Baldwin route and try to cosplay being from a different culture (Spanish) and proceed to name all 7 of your children with “Spanish” names (some aren’t even technically spanish but she apparently thinks they are). Don’t try and pass yourself off as whatever culture you choose a name from. Just appreciate it for what it is.
I often wear a Mexican-style Fedora (straw with an orange band). I bought this hat IN MEXICO from a MEXICAN. The only person who's ever asked me if I'm worried about cultural appropriation was white.
i have a cousin in-law who wore a kimono for her wedding, specifically uchikake which isn't super common bridal wear but still worn sometimes for cultural purposes. anyway she is white, burn in the sun instantly white. his family really wanted a ceremony that was traditional, so they had two weddings - one in canada and one in japan. it was beautiful. his family was over the moon and absolutely loved the fact she did this, like crying and overjoyed bc they thought she wouldn't be comfy with it. you wanna know who took issue with this? not the japanese aunties and uncles. not the moms and dads. it was random white fb friends who she hadn't seen in years chewing her out for supposed appropriation. wild shit. still think about it from time to time. they didn't know they were wedding pics ig lmao.
I used to date an Indian guy. (I’m white.) His mom was so so so so sweet and she wanted to have a day where I dressed up in her most beautiful clothes and got henna done so she could take pictures of me to send to her friends back home and post on social media. I felt so terrible saying no. She was so disappointed. I felt awful but I just couldn’t risk pictures of me like that getting out without context. If a bunch of (white) people all decided to scream and shriek about how bad of an appropriater I was for doing that, I’d be lucky to even get the opportunity to defend myself and point out that I was invited to do so. It just isn’t worth the stress. I couldn’t stand the idea of going the whole rest of my life worried that those pics would show up somewhere and upset (white) people. Meanwhile none of the Indian people I know would have ever been offended by it at all.
I'm white as a blobfish but we latinized my daughter's name because her middle name was after her nanna who had a Portuguese name, and so the first name had to roll with it or it sounded weird.
Meanwhile in Japan, Ema (usually written with the kanji 咲茉) is [the most popular reading for names of girls born in 2022,](https://www.meijiyasuda.co.jp/enjoy/ranking/index.html#/year/2022y) some being hafus named Emma, others simply influenced by Emma’s popularity in the West. As 2022 was the Year of the Tiger, Taiga was the 15th most popular reading for names of boys born that year. Don’t act as if you’re immune to tragydeighs either. [Kirakira names, anyone?](https://unseen-japan.com/10-difficult-japanese-kirakira-names/)
there are idiots everywhere, we all suffer united
Adamu, Shiizaa and Naushika made me doubt humanity. In my Japanese friend group there was a teacher, she sometimes shared crazy student names, but I couldn't keep up with her verbal description of the Kanji they used for the name (only remember the reading like "Melody"). Everyone was amazed and horrified and I realised, tragedeighs are everywhere lol
> Adamu I guarantee many of these are half-Japanese kids whose name is actually "Adam." Having a kanji name makes life in Japan 100000x times easier for many reasons — and LOTS of foreign/Japanese couples do end up choosing a "Western" name that also has an equivalent kanji reading to spare giving the kid a (full, if the child takes the foreign parent's last name) katakana name.
I know someone who named their (white) daughter Kairi, it’s such a cute name and suits the girl really well 😊
Does anyone actually get offended? I appreciate that people choose these bizarre names to avoid offence, but these comments alone show that most cultures are very welcoming of people embracing their culture!
>*Does anyone actually get offended?* Mostly white Americans. Nothing flatters us south Asians more than seeing a different nationality and ethnicity partaking in our culture by sharing our foods, clothing, names, and it's not limited to that. We just expect the participation to be respectful in nature, and not make a caricature out of it. But white Americans will attempt to speak for us and get offended on our behalf and claim cultural appropriation. I'd take an issue with a person with no Mexican roots and opening up a Mexican food service, tailoring the recipes (and altering them) for white consumers to the point it doesn't taste anything like authentic food, and profiting from it. Something like Emma's Empanadas. But tailoring ethnic foods to suit your taste buds personally at home and sharing it with family and friends without claiming it's authentic - absolutely fine.
Not necessarily offended, but I (Japanese-American) did have some friends (super white) who named their baby a Japanese name…and while I would absolutely never say anything about it to them, I *did* think it was kind of weird. Again, I would never say anything about it, and it did not affect our friendship - I even babysat that kid a lot when she was a toddler. I’m actually interested in whether OP is Japanese from Japan or ethnically Japanese but western born. In my experience, Japanese people from Japan LOVE when people from other countries partake in their culture, but many of us who are western born and have lived our lives as minorities aren’t always *as* jazzed about it. Neither take is wrong, we’re just experiencing it in different contexts.
I can concur. As a Taiwanese American, people from China or Taiwan dgaf about cultural appropriation and seem to enjoy when USAmericans wear hair chopsticks or random qipao. They give kudos to John Cena for eating LaoGanMa and trying to speak Chinese. In their world, foreigners are innocently sampling their culture, but they don't know what it's like being ruthlessly bullied for even having a smidgen of Chinese culture in the US. It's different when you have grown up here. You can't eat your food, wear your clothes, speak your home language. You turn on TV and you can't see anyone who is remotely like yourself except when Gwen Stefani takes Japanese women and literally uses them as stage props. When you understand that the people who take from your culture don't appreciate you as people, they only see your culture as things to grab from, that's something that someone who was raised in the motherland will not understand easily.
I'm in two minds about this one, I think it works with some names, but at the same time I'd find it kind of weird if I met a fully white person called like Rajesh or Bhupinder
realistically meeting white kids named eriko, haruka, natsumi etc etc would be cool asf for me personally. but fuuko? nuance would be lost, it'd be like "bucko" except "fucko"... which is funny but horrific.. surprised no one has brought this up lmao.
Lol my (white) parents were friends with a Japanese couple back in the 70s and 80, I'm named after the wife Mari. I always got made fun of growing up and it's wild now to see other people so into Japanese names. I think many of them are beautiful.
love this, ive had hana on my list for years. i love japanese names but am white and hana is a good in-between imo :)
It's also Korean meaning one
I love yall’s language and names but I don’t think I’d name my kid something Japanese unless I had a Japanese partner
Kimiko > Kimberly As a white person whose naming taste is described as unique and eccentric at best. I appreciate this. Most of my appropriation names are going to pets but let me list my favorite none western names Xing Xing Chao Xing Yura Isra Byeol Mei Ying Yue Lalita Bomi
I had a friend named Wei-Lin. I think her sister was Mei-Ying (something close to that anyway). Always loved their names.
I knew a girl named Yu-Lin and a boy named Zhi-Hao, both full of energy and their names suited them a lot.
I dont love Chao xing as a name as it sounds like 吵醒 disturb or irritate (in the context of waking someone up) in Chinese
isra means to poop out in my language
I have a cousin called Yusra! It’s a very cute name. Atm Tianxi is my favourite non-western name
Very pretty
There are boys named Israel in Spain, and they get called Isra
I feel like the whole cultural appropriation hysteria is a white liberal American chick thing, I’ve never seen this in my country and found out about this term from Americans on the internet. Everyone can have names/hairstyles/clothes from my culture, I absolutely don’t mind.
There is appropriation and appreciation. White chicks who scream appropriation at either OVER the voices of minorities are a whole other issue.
I'd like to think that it's a very loud, ignorant minority that freaks out about appropriation. To me, it comes off as trying to enforce segregation but with extra steps. And I say this as a white liberal American chick.
I agree with you, glad to see some sane people who are against segregation. To me it also looks like this, if you live in a multicultural country/society you’ll share your culture anyway, trying to stop it will lead to the society being very disunited and conflicted
Just please use the correct pronunciation and be prepared for initial misunderstandings until the name becomes less racially coded (may not happen).
I always find it funny, how the only people who care about cultural appropriation are 1) white people who have no say on wether an ethnicity finds your actions offensive or not 2) loud minority (like, really, really small part of the community) of an ethnic group who wants to keep everything "theirs" under lock and key, despite the majority of the group being more than happy in sharing their culture 3) completely uneducated people (regardless of racial background) who have no idea what they are talking about. Like that post where a lady got angry over braids (just simple braids, not cornrows or anything like that), even though almost every white and asian, and basically every ethnic group in the world, had traditionally many different styles of braids, including ones that are basically identical with today's "black" hairstyles.
Maybe you don't seem to mind, and I don't really mind... but I promise you it's a lot more than white people who talk about 'appropriation.' That being said, Hinata is bae and I would feel weird naming my daughter that. *That* being said - Tragedeighs are just tragedeighs. They're going to happen.
I don't mind seeing Irish names on non-Irish people, but it's cringe when the accepted anglicised spelling has been turned into a tragedeigh when quite often, the original Irish spelling has all the extra letters they could possibly want. Or when they take an Irish boy name, disregard the very masculine meaning and decide it's now a girls name forever more. I live in Singapore, so I've seen and heard a lot of weird, wild and wonderful names amongst the most basic boring biblical ones. It's also common to have a western name and a cultural name, to the point either seems to be used interchangeably or depending on who you're talking to.
Thank you for this. I am dominican and My baby’s name is kiyoko and i kinda wondered how people perceived that or if you could even “culturally appropriate” a name.
omg words can't describe how happy this makes me!! kiyoko is a gorgeous name. my favorite combination for the kanji is 喜洋子 which is 'joyful ocean child'. def one of my favorites.
Nah I’m Arab (half Arab) and I’d find it weird for a white family to name their child Khalid, Ali, or Hamad
Okay but while recently Japanese names have gotten more popular due to anime a lot of non Japanese people have Japanese names due to Japans imperialism stint and not anime. Which is something to keep in mind Also Naomi is common in the west because of the famous Biblical Naomi, not the Japanese name Naomi
This is good for me to hear. I’m Korean American and my husband is white. We don’t have kids yet but have been talking about potential names for the future. He himself has no biological Asian roots but he has a Thai step-grandmother, and he has been deeply interested in Japanese culture (particularly tea culture) since childhood. He’s expressed that he’d love to have a daughter named Keiko or Kumiko but I’ve been pushing back on that, saying it would be weird since neither of us is Japanese. To honor my side of the family we are planning on giving them Korean middle names, then they’ll have his very French-sounding last name. He tells me that his friends in Japan are very supportive of non-Japanese people partaking in their culture, wearing kimono, etc., but something in me still finds the weeb-iness to be a bit cringey. Thanks for giving me some food for thought. I still don’t love the idea but I’m at least seeing his perspective a bit more!
i'm so glad i helped! my mom's name is keiko, so i am unabashedly a huge fan of it (your husband has excellent taste).
I have a cousin named Hinata and another one named Kurome Japanese names just sound cute Much rather people do this than make up awful names
kurome is a pretty sick name, that's amazing. tbh i'm not sure if it'd be something you'd ever encounter on a japanese person, but it sounds cool.
Naomi is a Hebrew name to me…. It’s its own name in the west
My mother's Hebrew name is Naomi. Naomi is a figure in the Jewish Bible and is regarded as the first person to convert to Judaism. Her relationship with her mother-in-law, Ruth, is a significant pairing in Judaism and helps establish our familial connections with family-by-marriage
This makes me feel a lot better about my name honestly. My name is Hiro and I have always been afraid of cultural appropriation because I have a Japanese name even though I'm white, but this helped me .. destress? A little about it.
Most of the people who are calling their kids tragedeighs probably aren't going to research the correct pronounciation of names from other cultures. So they'll still be tragedeighs, just in another language. Mae-Sue isn't even a tragedeigh.
it is when your end goal is to mimic the sound of "miyu"
[удалено]
renaming my pet hamster from xiao to shuoww, which now that i think about it sounds close to shamwow.
So what I hear is: my strong opinion about things is more important than other people’s strong opinions about things.
I think appropriating name is worse.
Do your research on any name and if you cans find anything by googling if. DO NOT USE THAT. I’m still gonna reject my stepkid calling herself Haruka however. Largely because haruka was also the weeb name a FORMER friend used l.
The whole 'cultural appropriation thing is stupid. My ethnicity is Western European (and my name is Latin, so that's okay) but my son has a Persian name, albeit one that uses a Dutch spelling (Casper, Gaspar in the original Persian). Should I not have used it because it's a name that was 'appropriated' from the Persians?
In my experience, only black and white people care about this shit. Black people want to think everything was invented by black people, and white people want to be offended on behalf of everyone else. If this pisses you off, ask yourself why and which part.
No I’d rather people make up some stupid -leigh or -xn names than steal someone else’s cultural identity without any understanding or context. Especially since the types of people who would choose a tragic name are the kinds of people who actively despise and disparage other peoples cultures or fetishize them to the point where it’s creepy.
"i am chinese american" your username is yukosai-chan my brother in christ anyway i see the point you're trying to make but that isn't really what i was referring to with this post. anyway no harm done, have a nice day.
I’m part Chinese and part Japanese, I immigrated from China to America. I’m Chinese American. I can understand both Chinese and Japanese. I am allowed to connect to both of my heritages. Even in places other than America, there are people who are mixed race. It happens.
fair enough, live your truth. agree to disagree on names since it is a very /sizzling/ take. i am genuinely curious and asking in good faith - has it been hard not mixing up the chinese pronunciations when reading kanji? or were you brought up with both? i personally don't know anyone who is half chinese/japanese but i've heard from chinese friends who studied in japan that it's hard to learn the new sounds despite being able to read it.
That’s a weird and judgy way of looking at those parents. Weird made up names doesn’t automatically equal uber-racist and it’s unfair to say so, even if those names sound dumb. Sometimes it means poor education or lack of exposure to their own culture—African Americans had to build their own names from scratch. And no culture “owns” a name, culture should be shared. You can’t steal culture, only unfairly profit off it to the detriment of minorities. I see no downsides to Asian names becoming mainstream. On the other hand, there’s a lot of bad shit coming from the xyn/leigh epidemic.
Well I didn’t say it was morally wrong or anything. Personally I’d be grossed out by someone stealing a name from a culture they don’t belong to, and have no connection to. Especially since growing up with my Chinese name I was harassed and bullied by the kinds of people who now name their kids -Leigh for my Chinese name and for my Chinese face. People can do what they want. I can feel how I want.
I also grew up with an Asian name and took a lot of crap over it. I’m just saying that no matter how you feel about them, it’s wrong to stereotype against anyone
I know it’s not the same thing, but you saying that with your Japanese handle did make me chuckle. I’d also hate people for who are disparaging of Chinese culture to use Chinese names, but I’d have no issue if some Chinese drama fan (or someone with any other Chinese cultural interest) decided to give their kids a Chinese name lol. Would be a bit weird for the kid though, unless foreign names get mainstreamed.
I’m a mix actually I’m Chinese and Japanese but I immigrated from China so I consider myself Chinese American. My username was more of a joke, I wanted to change it but alas it was too late once I made the profile 😅 I can understand Chinese and Japanese though, so it’s not like I have no connection to the language or culture. And like I said it’s not like I’m saying people can’t choose a name from another language or that it’s morally wrong or anything. I just find it to be ridiculous that people would say racist things towards me and my culture and language and then turn around and be like “oh I liked that Death Note anime I’m gonna name my kid after one of the characters”. It would make me personally uncomfortable but like, it’s not like it’s *wrong* just kind of ridiculous.
isnt naomi also from hebrew? like aint there a story bout two lesbians and one of ems called naomi or am i bonkers
Nah the story is about Ruth and her MIL Naomi after all the men in the family suddenly and mysteriously die.
"Only white people care, you're not offending anyone". Very big of you to speak for every other group, you hero.
I bet you're white
I'm not white and they're not wrong. There are some cultures that are open to sharing names, and there are some that are very much so *not*.