Brady Evans Assignment 2D Analyze and Argue Section HB McGough October 7, 2013 Experienced Naming Behind every name,

, it seems, there lies a story. The process of giving someone a name does not occur instantly, but it happens over a long period of time. Most likely, the process goes on for the majority of the parents life before having a child. The textbook Convergences: Themes, Texts, and Images for Composition explains this process with a cluster of essays written over this topic. The cluster is given the title Whats in a Name? Within it, there are two specific essays that really focus on how parents derive names for their children. After reading both of these, a clear conclusive statement can be made: a persons name is given to them according to his or her parents experiences and how the parents envision their childs future. In the essay Trading Up: Where Do Baby Names Come From? co-authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner attempt to formulate an answer as to how parents decide on a name for their children. By viewing statistics considering the top five names among high-income families compared to the top five names among low-income families ten years later, they offer a possible answer: many parents, whether they realize it or not, like the sound of names that sound successful (Dubner 120). They found that the low-income families essentially imitate the high-income families when it comes to naming children. For example, according to Levitt and Dubner, the most popular high-income boy names in the 1990s were Benjamin, Samuel, Jonathan, Alexander, and Andrew (120). As shown in Figure 1, families in Washington D.C. are replicating those names twenty years later as 4 of the 5 previously mentioned names cracked the top ten.

Figure 1: A table of the top baby names used in Washington D.C. during 2012
Source: Image taken from the online version of The Huffington Post.

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Overall, it seems that parents name their children according to their vision of their childrens future. Levitt and Dubner take note of this idea stating, [Parents] are all trying to signal something with a name, and an overwhelming number of parents are seemingly trying to signal their own expectations of how successful they hope their children will be (120). In my personal experience, I recall an instance in which parents were thinking of their childrens future when naming them. It involves my own parents. When they thought of the future, they were concerned with how identifiable my sister and I would be. They wanted to give us names that were exclusively given to what gender we were. For instance, they believed the name Elizabeth was only given to females and the name Brady was only given to males. These names would ensure the least amount of troubles with our identity when it comes to applying for a job and sending in resumes. My parents believed that gender-specific names would be the best chance of success they could give us. A second essay titled Leave Your Name at the Border by Manuel Muoz adds to the discussion of the thought put behind naming someone. The essay focuses on how often Mexican names are mispronounced in America and the expectations that the American people have for those who have emigrated from Mexico. Muoz illustrates how Mexican names are, more often than not, given English pronunciations. He believes this is true because Americans simply do not put forth much effort to pronouncing foreign names correctly. When you hear a Mexican name spoken [], regardless of the speakers background, its no wonder that theres an English way of pronouncing it (Muoz 113). He also creates the point that, because of this problem with pronunciation in America, Mexican-American families have begun giving their children English names. As the United States-born children grow older, their Anglicized names begin to signify who does and who does not belong who was born here and who is [from over there] (116). The most logical explanation for this occurrence is that the parents have dealt with mispronunciations for their whole lives and wish for their children to not have to deal with that. I experienced name mispronunciation first-handedly in high school when I played for a Hispanic soccer team. Before each game, the referees had to verify who everyone was by reading aloud their names off of their player cards. The majority of the players were of Mexican heritage, and there was about an even distribution of foreign and domestic names. Just about every time, the following names were pronounced incorrectly: Angel, Cesar, Armon, Rolando, and Luis. It was easy to tell by the players facial expressions how annoyed they were by this. On the other hand, there were many Hispanic players who had American names such as Daniel, Alex, Jonathan, and Victor. Every single one of these players were born in America while the other players moved to the United States when they were young. The parents of the American players had prior experience dealing with mispronunciations before they had their children, and most likely gave them English names for this reason. Everyones name is what it is because of what their parents have experienced. As illustrated in the essays Trading Up: Where Do Baby Names Come From? and Leave Your Name at the Border, parents use their experiences to give a name according to their vision of their childs future. After having several years of a certain experience, parents are attempting to create a platform for a better future for their children. This is done through the process of naming. Depending upon their story, there are endless possibilities of what that platform could be.

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Works Cited Dubner, Stephen J., and Steven D. Levitt. Trading Up: Where Do Baby Names Come From? Convergences: Themes, Texts, and Images for Composition. Ed. Robert Atwan. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. 118-21 Muoz, Manuel. Leave Your Name at the Border. Convergences: Themes, Texts, and Images for Composition. Ed. Robert Atwan. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. 112-17 Popularity for Top 100 Names in District of Columbia for Births in 2012. Digital image. The Huffington Post. N.p., 16 May 2013. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.