The thing about Those White People Baby Names is the way they so poetically express the tension between individuality and rigid conformity. These parents all want to name their child something unique, because they value the concept of uniqueness, yet simultaneously they abhor it in practice… ergo, 30 different spelling variations on the most normative possible names. This homogeneity-masquerading-as-diversity is inseparable from capitalist consumer culture and in fact is directly analogous to the experience of walking into a grocery store and being asked to “choose” between 50 varieties of toothpaste with the same exact ingredients, 12 brands of laundry detergent, etc.
Somebody’s third eye is WIDE the fuck open??!!!!!!!
okay so there’s actually a reasonbehind this that isn’t just “white people are terrible and really really boring!” it’s to do with Mormon culture. specifically: the fireworks you get when sexist expectations and terrible petty drama collide.
most of Those White People Baby Names are originally Mormonbaby names. they’re chosen (or invented) by women in Utah; they tend to filter out to the rest of the world through things like “mommy blogs” and “baby name books” and “parent forums.”
you know how every culture has a “hey, welcome to the world, lil baby!” ritual? the mormon version of that is called a baby blessing. the baby’s father, and a handful of other men in the family, go up in front of the congregation during a Sunday service and say a special prayer. it begins by reciting the baby’s fullname and then saying “I give you a name and a blessing.” It’s not something you can avoid doing- if you try, people will think that you’re trying to hide something. baby blessings are mandatory, and everyone in the congregation willwatch and judge you.
becauseof this, your baby’s name gets a good bit more of a spotlight in Mormon culture than it does in secular culture, and that’s sayingsomething.
Mormon women start picking out names for their hypothetical future kids in fourth or fifth grade and snipe at each other for picking “weird” or “bad” ones. it’s something that’s supposed to be in the back of your head longbefore you have a kid. and because people willjudge you if you pick a name that’s “too boring” or “too weird”, it is already an intricate dance of finding something that’s “interesting” enough to pass muster but not so “interesting” your kid won’t survive kindergarten.
and that dance becomes even more intricate when Baby Name Drama gets involved.
see, because you’re supposed to put so much time into your baby’s name, a lot of women get… overinvested, let us say. the perfect name they picked for their baby is THEIR baby’s name and NO ONE ELSE’S. if you so much as dare to BREATHE that you’re naming your baby/pet/favourite laptop the same thing, you have STOLEN their BABY’S NAME.
so here’s the thing… say you really wanted to name your daughter Amy. You love the name, it’s classic, it’s cute, it’s perfectfor your little girl-to-be… and then your sister-in-law gets pregnant and LOUDLY ANNOUNCES thatshe’snaming her baby Amy! and you know for a factthat she’s the type of person to throw a massive petty shitfit over you STEALING her BABY’S NAME. your family will take sides. herfamily will take sides.
if you want to avoid the drama, and you’re dead-set on naming your daughter-to-be Amy… well, then you name your daughter Aimee, or Aimi, or Aimy. It’s not the same name, it’s pronounced the same but it’s not the exact same name, so you can shut up, sis-in-law.
from what I understand a lot of the Crazy Name Spellings came from this root- “it’s not Kaylee, it’s Kayleigh, I swearI didn’t steal your idea”- and then once it became a trend, people named their kids that to be ~trendy~ just like they did with every other stupid trend.
but the root cause of Terrible Trendy Misspelt Baby Names has very little to do with white people being boring and conformist, and certainlynothing to do with capitalism. it’s a good old fashioned case of a) sexist expectations warping women’s behaviour into really really stupid shapes and b) Petty Small Community Drama.
This is a terrific addition to this post that I don’t think actually contradicts my main idea all that much
Sometimes as a European you play an American game and even though you speak fluent English and culturally there’s not too much different you can Tell you’re missing some kind of cultural context
I had no fucking clue what a mormon was when I played the New Vegas DLCs
This post is not an invitation for you all to explain mormonism to me I am fine not knowing about this
[European voice] “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? You mean like from Fallout?”
Go back to sleep honey Mormonism isn’t real
Exactly this.. I mean… I think I have heard about them in some american tv shows n such even prior playing Fallout:NV, but I thought they are either like…
1) maybe fictional
2) just Jehovah’s Witnesses but american
3) that theres not that many of them, but they are absurd enough to be parodied so often they ended up a notorious part of american popculture or something…
When you think of Mormons, you probably think of whiteness—and you’d be correct, since 93% are white. What you don’t think of is Filipinx.
And yet, for two years, I was a Mormon.
Before this, I grew up in a loosely Catholic upbringing and rarely went to church. But after my dad left the U.S. Navy and our family, we moved back to the U.S. and lived with cousins who were Mormons. There, we were regularly visited by missionaries, and eventually converted.
Much like being a Navy brat, converting was less of a choice and more of a package family deal. I just went along with it to make everyone happy. But what I didn’t know was that going from kind-of-Catholic to Mormon was stepping out of the kiddie pool and going in the deep end.
I learned of their living prophet and apostles, the Book of Mormon and its golden plates history, and Jesus coming to America after resurrection. I saw ostentatious temples, and heard about special underwear and polygamy. But I wasn’t taught its racist roots—that was something I felt, not knew.
Meanwhile, my art at the time was inspired by graffiti/tagging and the AZN pride era, a pan-Asian movement that cultivated a positive view of being Asian American. It was the era of tuner culture, souped up Hondas, spiky hair, TRG, Asian Avenue, and AIM screennames like aZnBbyGrL.
AZN spaces weren’t utopias by any stretch. But at its core, it represented community and herd protection in a country that didn't—and still doesn't—want AsAms here. While non-Asian spaces pressured me to assimilate, AZN spaces provided a bubble where I could be myself more.
For Asians, the pressure to assimilate and learn self-hate is universal. But for Filipinx, there’s an added pressure with religion. Everyone who hears I was once Mormon thinks it’s the strangest thing (which I get), but the concept of Filipinx being converted is far from new.
Catholicism was forcibly thrust onto the Philippines upon Magellan’s arrival, and subsequently reinforced through 333 years of violent Spanish colonization. Today, the Philippines is 1 of 2 Southeast Asian countries with a majority Christian population (the other is East Timor).
Even though I’m Fil-Am, I feel connected to my ancestors through my experience of white Mormon missionaries dunking me in their colonizing waters, washing off “sinful” mindsets or behaviors that didn’t fit their specific mold. No matter where Filipinx live, whiteness finds us.
To this day, I feel pressure to “purify” my art and make myself smaller as a Filipino man. I know I’m not alone. Every day, Asians struggle with “baptisms.” We search for an AsAm pride, but it’s something we must create ourselves—not despite anti-Asian racism but because of it.
(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)
