Black Names and Business: Naming Our Kids

While surfing the net today I came across two things. On Connecting Black I found the forum post: “Black” sounding name can equal no job and then in the BP Group – Mother’s Only Lounge there is an ongoing post on unique Black Baby Names, some nice and some just two crazy for me to pronounce. At the end of the day I’m stuck wondering why we sometimes gravitate towards the most unusual sounding names and then why such a thing should have any bearing on our job applications in the future? Whether I like your name or not, it shouldn’t affect whether I offer you a job. But at the same time, the names we are given do have an affect on our lives.

After much time and thought, my son’s father and I decided to name him Christopher Eden Ottley, a.k.a. C.E.O. His name embodies everything we wanted it to; strength, success, and power as his father desired for him. And Christ-like, pleasant qualities that I desired him to have. Another plus to my surprise is how happy everyone was with our decision to name him something they could pronounce. I guess today common names are so out they are actually in again?? But honestly, it was never my intent to give him a name that would impress future employers, though that was always something folks told me to keep in mind. Being a ‘LaShanda’ is something I am quite proud of. And I would hate for someone to make me or any other person feel ashamed just because of their name.

I wonder how many of us seek out normal names in an attempt to avoid racism. I wonder how many of us feel the harder it is to pronounce a name the more ethnicly perfect it must be. I wonder why we as black folks are sooooo stuck up on the trivial things like Ghetto Names and Rap Videos as opposed to improving Black Education and putting our money back into our communities.

*Sigh* I wonder what you think about this post.