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doi: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.2008.00776.

Whats in a name? An exploration of the


significance of personal naming of mixed
children for parents from different racial,
ethnic and faith backgrounds

Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

Abstract

This article is concerned with how and why parent couples from different racial,
ethnic and faith backgrounds choose their childrens personal names? The limited
literature on the topic of names often focuses on outcomes, using birth name
registration data sets, rather than process. In particular, we consider the extent to
which the personal names that mixed couples give their children represent an
individualised taste, or reflect a form of collective affiliation to family, race, ethnicity
or faith. We place this discussion in the context of debates about the racial and faith
affiliation of mixed people, positing various forms of pro or post collective
identity. We draw on in-depth interview data to show that, in the case of mixed
couple parents, while most wanted names for their children that they liked, they also
wanted names that symbolised their childrens heritages. This could involve parents
in complicated practices concerning who was involved in naming the children and
what those names were. We conclude that, for a full understanding of naming
practices and the extent to which these are individualised or affiliative it is important
to address process, and that the processes we have identified for mixed parents
reveal the persistence of collective identity associated with race, ethnicity and faith
alongside elements of individualised taste and transcendence, as well as some
gendered features.

Introduction

We use names to create boundaries between belonging and not belonging.


(Davidoff et al., 1999: 92)

What to call the new baby is a common pre-occupation for many soon-to-be
mothers and fathers, and can be of intense interest to wider family and friends.
Websites abound containing lists of names and their meanings to help parents
choose one for their child, often with advice such as the advantages and
drawbacks of bestowing an unusual name, or the importance of making sure
The Sociological Review, 56:1 (2008)
2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review. Published by
Blackwell Publishing Inc., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, 02148,
USA.
Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

it sounds well alongside the childs family name (eg babyworld.co.uk,


babyzone.com). Every year in the UK the Office for National Statistics
releases a ranked table of registered personal or given names for babies. The
renewed popularity of old-fashioned names such as Jack and Olivia, and
influence of celebrity culture in the appearance of names such as Keira
(Knightley) and Cruz (David and Victoria Beckhams youngest son) is noted
(eg ONS, 2006; Ward, 2006). The entry of Mohammed into the top 20 in 2004
and its continuing representation amongst the most popular names has been
hailed as a reflection of the diverse nature of contemporary British society (eg
Womack, 2006). And in 2005 the Daily Mail reported a vigorous discussion
among teachers about the childrens names they associate with troublesome
behaviour with chav names derived from celebrities and soap operas, such
as Britney, Chardonnay, Jordan, Jermaine and Kyle, regarded as especially
suggestive (Clark, 2005; see also Wallace and Spanner, 2004).
Naming of children is institutionalised as a ritual feature of most religions,
and many local authorities now offer civil baby naming ceremonies. Beyond
the UK, some states lay down legal parameters for what are considered
suitable and acceptable names for parents to bestow on their child, and can
take action if the given names contravene the regulations (for example, the
furore in Sweden over a couples attempt to name their daughter Metallica,1
and the constant fining of the Danish mother who called her son Christoph-
pher).2 The law restricting choice of personal names in France was only
revoked in 1993, although registrars still have the right to refer cases of
concern to the court.3
Despite this everyday significance, social researchers have paid little atten-
tion to how and why parents name their children, even in the literature on
transitions to parenthood. As discussed below, what work there is often
focuses on outcomes, using birth name registration data sets, rather than
process. Nonetheless, a theme of some of this discussion is that there has been
a shift towards more individualised personal names, away from traditional
affiliative naming practices. Tensions and debates about moving beyond or
retaining affiliations are also a feature of discussions about racialised (and to
a lesser extent religious) identification and categorisation, especially for
mixed populations, and these also have relevance to the naming of children.
In this article, we draw on in-depth data to consider how and why parents
choose names for their children in a particular situation where the mother
and father are each from a different racial, ethnic and faith background. In the
light of little previous research on the topic, we regard this as an exploratory
endeavour. In particular, we focus on the extent to which the personal names
that mixed couples, where partners are from different backgrounds, give to
their children represent an individualistic choice or reflect a form of collective
affiliation to family, race, ethnicity or faith. For example, if parents favour
individualised names, then these can, perhaps, symbolise a transcending of
their childs specific mixed background. Bestowing a name signifying collec-
tive affiliation, however, may say something about favouring a particular side

40 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
Whats in a name?

of their childs family, racial, ethnic or religious heritage, and create dilemmas
between them or difficulties with wider family.

Naming practices outcomes and trends

The majority of the limited research literature on childrens personal names


comprises studies conducted in the United States, which in itself is a problem
in straightforward translation of any findings from that society to the UK. One
strand of this literature concerns cost-benefit analyses of the relationship
between names and life outcomes, often drawing on birth name registration
records. Such studies have investigated the character of names, including start-
ing letter, conventionality and length (eg Mehrabian, 2007; Treiman and
Broderick, 1998). For example, giving a girl a very feminine sounding name
(Anna as opposed to Ashley) is said to mean that she is less likely to study
maths or science (Figlio, forthcoming). Attention has also been paid to racial
and ethnic categories in these sorts of cost-benefit studies, bringing the issue of
collective affiliations into the debate.
In this affiliative outcomes vein, while some propose that distinctively
African-American personal names (such as Shanice or DeShawn) or low
status names lead teachers to have less expectations of childrens attainment,
and thus to lower educational outcomes (Figlio, 2005), others find no such
association between Black names and life outcomes, concluding that it is
the socio-economic circumstances in which children are born and raised that
are primary, and that Black names may have localised benefits in denoting
racial solidarity (Fryer and Levitt, 2003; see also Thornton, 1993 on African-
Americans highlighting African heritage through naming of children).
Whether or not racialised minority groups such as African-Americans can
influence others expectations of, and their actual potential by what personal
name they carry is also contested by Mary Waters (1990) broader concerns
with ethnic affiliation in the United States. She argues that, although White
ethnic groups may see ethnicity as inherited with their surname rather
than given name often shaping their ethnic self-identification, even where they
are from quite mixed backgrounds in fact they possess an array of ethnic
identification options that they can claim and invoke as and when they choose
at little social cost (eg Irish-American, Italian-American). In contrast, racial-
ised identities are assigned to non-White minorities by others, limiting their
claim choices and fixing their ethnicities (eg African-American, Mexican-
American). (We discuss debates about racialised identification for mixed
people in particular below.)
Kinship affiliation in personal names has also been investigated. There are
arguments that naming practices that link a child to their father (directly or
variants in first or middle names) promote and strengthen bonds between
them (Furstenberg and Talvitie, 1980; Daly and Wilson, 1982). More generally,
named-for-kin conventions such as naming boys after paternal relations and

2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 41
Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

girls for maternal kin are said to be not only a demonstration of affection and
respect, but also a way of perpetuating bonds, authority relations and resource
obligations down the generations. Some work, (also using birth registers of
names as with the outcomes literature), however, posits a shift away from
longstanding naming-for-kin customs towards patterns less dictated by sex or
lineage (see discussion in Furstenberg and Talvitie 1980). Further, in a wide-
ranging sociological study, again based on birth name registers, Stanley
Lieberson uses choice of childrens given names to make broader arguments
about the mechanisms that underlie changes in tastes and fashions, and cul-
tural change more generally (see also Bentley et al., 2004). His thesis is that,
rather than transformations in culture reflecting major social change (such as
seeing the turn to distinct African-American names in the US as a conse-
quence of the rise of Black Power Movement), culture is a surface where
shifts are forced by a variety of disparate internal taste mechanisms. There are,
for example, rachet effects in the form of steady variations on existing tastes,
and expansion from a taste stem (such as the shift from Tonya to Latonya as
a popular girls name among African-Americans that occurred over the 1970s
and 80s). These and other internal cultural processes mean that some inno-
vations created by external social change take hold while others do not. Of
particular relevance to our discussion here is Liebersons assertion that names
were not always primarily a matter of taste, following custom rather than
liking, but there has been rapid change in this respect since the early 20th
century as a result of urbanisation and individualism speeding up the effects of
the internal process mechanisms under the cultural surface.
A shift from custom to taste is also said to apply to religious names (at least
among White western populations), which can overlap with kin-naming con-
ventions. In her historical study of naming children in the Puritan-Yankee
world, Gloria Main concludes that the shift in patterns she identifies in the
mid-18th century: reveals the emergence of a movement towards the more
individualistic, child-centred naming that would eventually reign supreme
(Main, 1996, p. 14). This gives deep roots to the individualisation thesis as it
links to the asserted decline in traditional naming patterns (Bauman, 2000;
Beck, 2000; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Giddens, 1991, 1992; Weeks,
1995, 2007). The concept of individualisation claims that peoples lives have
become less constrained by tradition and more subject to individual choice.
Given life pathways, categories and hierarchies are undercut and undermined;
social forms and identities become disembedded from their established bases
and freed up, creating new commonalities in the context of globalised cultures.
Identity becomes subject to reflexivity, characterised by contingent choice
within a multiplicity of frameworks for who and what a person can be. As
people feel more responsible for their project of the self and the search for
self-fulfilment, they are less likely to follow the traditional life pathways laid
down by their forebears, more likely to seek egalitarianism rather than author-
ity relations, and indeed are more embedded in friendships and families of
choice rather than families of fate.

42 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
Whats in a name?

A consequence of the individualisation thesis is likely to be that the signifi-


cance and benefits of kinship- and religion-based, or other traditionally affili-
ative naming practices will wane further, and a variety of individualised
emotional and aesthetic tastes come to the fore. Parents will reflect on whether
or not they wish to follow tradition in naming their children; naming customs
can be left aside for individual taste choices. When it comes to the outcomes
literature, however, any effect of individualisation in assigning personal names
is viewed askance. Made-up or bizarre names4 for children (such as Knut5),
rather than more traditional or neutral names (such as John), have been
castigated as a liability rather than an asset in childrens life chances, with
parents urged to adopt a more scientific outcome-based approach to naming
their children in place of emotional or aesthetic preference (Mehrabian, 2007).
Indeed, the state naming laws that we referred to earlier are often concerned
with preventing detriment to, or mockery of, the child.
The life chances and naming trends literatures can each be said to be
outcome-based either in terms of how childrens names shape their life
outcomes, or the outcome of parental decisions about naming comprised by
the registered name itself with a focus on the overall changes and trends over
time in what names parents give their children. There is little concern with the
active doing process of naming; that is, with the how and why of parents
choosing personal names for their children that forms the concern of this
article, specifically in the context of mixed race, ethnic and faith relationships.

Mixed children and parenting

Our focus on how and why parents in mixed relationships, from different
racial, ethnic and faith backgrounds, choose personal names for their children
occurs in the context where some analyses the 2001 UK Census indicated that
the population who identified as Mixed6 is now the third largest and one of
the fastest growing ethnic groups (Salt and Rees, 2006; for another interpre-
tation see Simpson and Finney, 2007), half (50%) of whom are under the age
of 16, with over half (55%) of these dependent children having married or
cohabiting parents (Murphy, 2006). There are also increasing trends in mar-
riage and cohabitation across religious boundaries (for example, Graham
et al., 2007; Morgan et al., 1996). Transcendent individualisation or decisions
around collective affiliation in naming children where couple parents have
different heritages thus may form a growing issue.
Whether individualised or affiliative names are given by parents to their
Mixed children might also be regarded as of interest in the light of longstand-
ing assertions that the children of mixed relationships are consigned to the
marginal and tragic between two worlds status (eg Stonequist, 1937), most
recently restated in remarks by the Chair of the Commission for Equality and
Human Rights, Trevor Phillips, about identity stripping children who grow

2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 43
Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

up marooned between communities (2007). To what extent are parents in


mixed relationships attempting to signal their hopes for a sense of belonging
when they name their children?
Debates concerning belonging and identity for mixed race people in par-
ticular resonate with the issues of affiliation or individualisation in relation to
parents naming children, though this is less the case for mixed faith. Posi-
tions concerned with mixed race tend to be either pro-race or post-race
(Caballero, 2005), and are overwhelmingly preoccupied with Black-White
parentage.7 The pro-race position has two main strands. The first argues that
children of Black and White parentage should be raised as Black, since this is
how they will be perceived by society (Banks, 1996; Henriques, 1975; Ladner,
1977; Maxim, 1993; Prevatt-Goldstein, 1999). Kinship and religious affilia-
tions are positioned as secondary in this approach. This raises the issue of
whether or not parents in mixed race relationships also presume this inevi-
table racialised positioning in their choice of name for their children? The
second pro-race strand challenges this view while retaining a focus on race, in
understanding mixedness as a legitimate racial identity. It is argued that
parents need to raise their mixed children to recognise both or all of their
heritages for a healthy identity (Crippen and Brew, 2007; Milan and Keily,
2000; Oriti et al., 1996; Rockquemore and Laszloffy, 2005; Wehrly, 2003), and
White parents are seen as needing to develop racial literacy in order to
manage this (Twine, 2004). Again, the question is raised as to whether or not
parents seek to acknowledge all their childrens heritages, and overlaps with
kinship, in the names that they bestow?
Post-race positions go further to regard mixedness as deconstructing
notions of race and a means of moving beyond them, as part of what Stuart
Hall calls new ethnicities (1992: 257) whereby unified, simple racialised iden-
tity is disrupted and challenged by cultural ethnic plurality. Thus the racial
hybridity8 embodied by mixed people allows us to glimpse the possibilities for
a cosmopolitan and democratic society, freed from divisive hierarchies and
boundaries of racialised categorisation and discourse (Ali, 2003; Gilroy, 2000;
Olumide, 2002). This perspective has some resonance with the disembedding
arguments within the individualisation thesis discussed above. While post-race
approaches do not provide prescriptions to parents as to the identity they
should promote for their mixed race children in the manner characterising
pro-race positions, it is possible to link this position to the naming practices
that also transcend a fixed affiliation that are argued, in the literature directly
concerned with childrens given names, to have become the norm.
Discussion of mixed faith families mirrors mixed race debates in setting out
one faith, both faiths or no faith stances as identity and parenting practice
(Gruzen, 1987), with Christian-Jewish mixes replacing the Black-White pre-
occupation. It departs from the more prescriptive pro-race positions at least,
however, by placing more of a stress on parental choice and less on the wider
social context, again keying into arguments about disembedding and individu-
alisation. The focus is on parents presenting a united front, whichever path

44 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
Whats in a name?

they take (albeit in the US context a mix of both faiths is often championed:
Gruzen, 2001; Hawxhurst, 1998; Lerner, 1999; Yob, 1998). The recurring ques-
tion as to whether, in naming their children, parents show individualistic
choice or reflect a form of collective affiliation, in this case to religion or
religions and any overlap with kinship and race or ethnicity, remains pertinent.

Our study

The study9 on which we draw to explore issues of whether or how parents


couples from different racial, ethnic and faith backgrounds signal a sense of
belonging in the naming of their children has a broader concern with how such
parents negotiate the everyday practice of bringing up children and the
passing on of aspects of heritage across the generations. It includes the com-
plexities of multiple-mixing where race and ethnicity may overlap with faith,
as well as issues in raising children in mono-racial but mixed ethnicity or mixed
faith families.
A major part of the research10 involves separate semi-structured interviews
with mothers and fathers in 35 couples bringing up at least one child aged
between 7 and 12. In five cases, the father did not want to participate in the
research and so we have the mothers perspective only for these couples. Our
sample contains a diverse range of mixing in relationships, and indeed around
a quarter of our 65 interviewees were from mixed backgrounds themselves.
The majority of the couples (23) involve a faith mix alongside a racial or ethnic
mix, although the interviewees do not all regard every facet of their potential
difference from each other as salient. For example, Nancy is Jewish and of
White South African origin, and her husband Andrew is White British and an
atheist from a Christian background. In a predominantly White society, their
ethnic difference is of no significance to them for their childrens sense of
belonging, but religion is. In contrast, Nicola is from a Catholic background,
with a White British father and a British mother who is an Irish-Pakistani mix.
Her Black Trinidadian husband, Leo, eschews religion. For them, faith is of no
significance in bringing up their child to have a sense of identity, but both want
to acknowledge all four elements of their racial and ethnic mix. Most of the
other couples (10) involve shared faith background but racial or ethnic differ-
ence. These mainly comprise racial differences such as Chinese and White
British, and Black British and White British, but a mono-racial minority ethnic
difference is a Jamaican and Ghanaian couple. The remaining couples (2) are
a White British faith mix, in both cases Christian and Jewish.
Around a third of our interviewees (11 couples) were contracted through a
sift survey distributed through schools (see endnote 10). We also approached
agencies working in the field, such as voluntary sector organizations specifi-
cally serving mixed families and religious bodies welcoming them, and some of
our interviewees were recruited in this way (6 couples). Most, however about
half were accessed through informal contacts (18 couples). The interviews

2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 45
Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

themselves focused on the mothers and fathers considerations and negotia-


tions with each other around how, if at all, to pass on, and which aspects to pass
on, of which heritage, to their children, and their everyday practices to these
ends. Within this semi-structured remit, the free-flowing discussions were
driven largely by the parent being interviewed, rather than rigidly following a
prescribed route. Perhaps reflecting the lack of attention to the naming of
children by social researchers, it did not occur to us originally to ask parents
about naming as a feature of investigating their negotiation of belonging and
difference in parenting. In our pilot interviews with a couple, however, the
open nature of the interview process allowed both, separately, to raise the
significance of their childrens names. We thus included this topic on our
interview schedule.
In the following discussion we draw on material about their childrens
personal names from the interviews with the parents in our sample. We use
pseudonyms for them and their children in order to protect the familys
privacy. Anonymity was especially important to some parents where they felt
that their family stood out in their local neighbourhood or work context. We
have done our best to select pseudonyms for the children that are as close as
possible in intention and effect to their actual names. This is crucial given this
articles concerns. Sometimes, however, we may have fallen short in finding an
exact match, representing all facets of a parents discussion of the consider-
ations and negotiations around naming their children. We ask the reader to
bear with us in such cases.

Whos involved in naming?

Much of the work on children names is not interested in who actually names
a child (though Furstenberg and Talvitie, 1980, provide some exception), and
where this is referred to it seems to be assumed that, with coupled parents at
least, it is the mother and father together who choose them. (This is perhaps
based on authors own experiences see prologue in Lieberson, 2000 discuss-
ing his curiosity about the name he and his wife chose for their daughter.)
Many parents did refer to we in discussing naming their children. For
example, Susan and Lesley are a White British couple. Susan is from a Chris-
tian background, while Lesley is Jewish and the birth mother of one their
children, Joseph. The other, Hayley, is adopted and brought her name with her.
They decided to bring up their children mainly as Jewish but also with a
Christian input, though over the course of time the latter faith had taken far
more of a back seat than they originally envisaged. Susan described choosing
Josephs name:

I think Lesley was quite pleased that it was a Jewish name, but it was a name
that we chose together. We both really liked Joseph. Yeah, because actually if
it was a girl it was going to be Sarah. They were very Jewish names that we
both liked.

46 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
Whats in a name?

In some cases the we choice could be augmented by the choice of the parent
who had most expertise in the type of name being decided upon. Jinglei is
originally from China, married to Brian, a White British man. Neither practise
a religion.They have two children who have English names, Boyd and Marilyn.
Whilst bringing up their children to have a sense of both their racial and ethnic
heritages was important to Jinglei and Brian, it is no longer a major concern
for them; coping with their childrens difference in terms of learning difficul-
ties has become the main focus of their parenting. Nonetheless, as a means of
reflecting the other side of their heritage, the children have alternative
Chinese names, which Jinglei took responsibility for choosing:

We choose together for English names and then I choose for their Chinese
names. My sons name, I spoke to my Dad. My Dad said it is good. They
picked the name for Boyd. For Marilyn, a simple name, its nice. We often say
it as well.

Jingleis involvement of her father in deciding on her sons Chinese name


heralds our discussion of the role of other family members in choosing names
below.
Behind the front of a we choice, however, fraught and lengthy negotiations
could occur, which almost amounted to one parent choosing the name. Nancy
and Andrew have already been referred to in describing our sample above.
They have a daughter and a son: Rebecca and Isaac. Despite his atheisim,
Andrew had agreed that their children should be brought up as practising
Jews. Nancy provided an extended discussion of how they settled on the name
Isaac:

I was very keen to have Old Testament names. And again I was terribly keen
that they [her son and daughter] should have my surname because I suppose
you could say its a Jewish surname . . . We struggled to find a boys name we
both liked. And I actually always really liked the name Isaac. And when I
suggested that it was like Oh no, anything but that, not Isaac! And we went
through them all, Jonathan and Daniel and, you know, all the biblical ones.
And finally I think we decided on Nathan . . . You know, it wasnt a name that
I desperately liked, it was more it was the only one we could find in common.
So then, when he was born Andrew said Actually I dont like Nathan! This
was after he was born. So I was like Okay, what do you like? Again we were
just restricting ourselves to biblical names. And my father of course had just
died and my fathers middle name was Benjamin, so what about that? No,
no, no. And in fact Isaacs middle name is Benjamin. And literally we were
running out of time, however long that thing is before you have to register
them. And so I came back and said What about Isaac if we cant come up
with anything better? Anyway he just agreed to Isaac. You know, there were
various reasons why he didnt want the other ones so he just in the end
succumbed. And I was rather pleased because I got my own way!

2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 47
Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

Other of the accounts we give in subsequent sections also seem to imply that
choice of childrens names was driven by one parent more than the other (see
discussions of Vicky, Nicola and Leo, and Jamila and Mike). In some cases, the
fact that it was one parents choice only was more explicit and straightforward.
Hasan is originally from Pakistan and a practising Muslim, and his wife
Maryam is a White British woman who converted to Islam upon marrying him.
They have three sons Dalil, Bilal and Sahil who they are bringing up as
Muslims with a British Pakistani ethnic identity. Hasan asserted:

The first two, the big one and the middle one, I named them. She wanted to
name the little one so I gave her the choice.

Hasans mention of handing over of the choice of their youngest sons name to
Maryam raises the issue that some gendered cultural traditions place the
naming of children with the father, or indeed with other family members, often
a grandfather. In some cases, this generational involvement was accomplished
relatively smoothly. In other cases, it raised difficulties.
Jaclyn and Kojo are a Black Jamaican and Black Ghanaian couple who are
both non-practising Christians. Jaclyn described how she had worked along-
side Kojo to facilitate Ghanaian traditions in the naming of their daughter,
Jasmine, who is being brought up with recognition of both her ethnic heritages
alongside a pan-African racial affiliation:

I think this is where you go back to Ghana in terms of rituals, and when
Jasmine was born its customary that you name the child, so she had to be
named and the father has to choose a name. A lot of Caribbean women
involved with African men, they say No. They may put their foot down and
say No, Im not doing it. But I worked alongside him and said Yes, lets
name her. So shes not only got the name Jasmine but shes got two Ghana-
ian names, which is named after his sister.

In contrast, Paul and Katy both discussed difficulties around the same tradi-
tions. Paul is Black Ghanaian and has a Christian background, while Katy is of
White British and South African Jewish parentage, now an atheist. They are
bringing up their three children, Alexa, Zara and Ethan, with a sense of both
their racial and ethnic heritages, but this has limits. As well as refusing to have
their children christened, as Pauls family would have preferred, they also
transgressed Ghanaian naming customs. Their accounts both give a unified
we position in describing this, but have slightly different stresses in them:

My dad would have preferred to either have named the children in accor-
dance with a sort of family tradition, which Im not exactly clear what that
is . . . I think, yes, theres normally a naming ceremony . . . I think my dad
would have liked to have named our children but I think he would have liked
to have chosen the names as well . . . but, you know, our, not really a

48 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
Whats in a name?

concession but, you know, each of the children has got as their middle name
the Ghanaian day name.11
(Paul)
Pauls father was quite upset when we had the children because apparently
the tradition, which Paul didnt know, was that the father, his father, should
choose our childrens names, and we didnt know that, and we didnt really
want him to do that . . . And that was a bit of a clash because I think in their
culture you would totally respect your elders, and Paul wasnt respecting his
dad by not doing that. So that wasnt very popular.
(Katy)

Katy stressed far more of a culture clash between individualised and affilia-
tive involvement in bestowing names than Paul did in his account. We return
to these sorts of inter-generational difficulties later.
Zoes experience, however, provides an exception to the predominant gen-
dered cultural traditions discussed by our interviewees. Her family originated
from Malta and she was a practising Catholic. Her husband, Dave, was White
British and had converted to Catholicism (from nominal Church of England)
before marrying Zoe. Their son, Nathan, was being brought up as a practising
Catholic, and Zoe also wanted him to have a strong sense of his Maltese
heritage. Zoe had faced a difficult situation in naming Nathan, in the form of
her mother-in-laws expectations:

I mean when she found out I was pregnant, she was really pleased and she
wanted to name Nathan. You know, regardless of boy or girl, she said I want
to name your child. And I said no. I said, he is our child and we will name
him . . . And I have always been polite to her, I have never been rude to her.
Because I think it is [Dave]s mum . . . I mean, Dave, with the name, he said
no mum. You know, he was in agreement with me. So I let Dave do it. I think
it is his mother and he should be able to go to her with whatever problems
and sort it out with her.

This instance seems more to do with a clash around matriarchial kinship


boundaries rather than ethnic cultures, but it does have an element of affilia-
tive versus individualised naming practices in that, if Zoes mother-in-law had
had her way, it would have placed Nathan more firmly as belonging to that
side of the wider family.
Our interviewees variable descriptions of who was or expected to be
involved in the naming of children have also raised the way that individual
taste in naming is in play, but this is not without parameters for these parent
couples from different backgrounds. The boundaries may be religious (Susan
and Leslie, Nancy and Andrew, Hasan and Maryam) or racial/ethnic (Jaclyn
and Kojo, Paul and Katy), and they can also involve family links and expec-
tations (Nancy and Andrew, Jinglei and Brian, Jaclyn and Kojo, Paul and Katy,
Zoe and Dave). The issue of acknowledging a range of heritages through the

2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 49
Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

full run of names given (including middle names) is part of this. We explore
these issues of individual taste within collective parameters further below.

Individualised name or collective affiliation?

A stress on individualised taste, drawing on popular culture, and idiosyncratic


adaptation of names is evident in several of our interviewees accounts. An
example here is Vicky. She referred to herself as a Columbian-Italian mix and
is a practising Catholic (with the Italian part being provided by her step rather
than birth father, who was also Columbian). Her husband, who did not take
part in our research, is of Columbian-English heritage and practises an
Eastern religion. Their children are being brought up with a strong Columbian
identity and as practising Catholics. Neither of the childrens names drew on
any of their potential or practised heritages:

[Nabilias] got an African name! . . . I dont know what African, whether its
Swahili or I heard it on the television and liked it. And my sons Aled, which
is Welsh.

Nicola, whose own ethnic mix and mixed couple relationship was noted
above in discussing our sample, was asked how her daughters name of Nita
was decided upon:

I read [name of author and book], and the name just stuck. But obviously
because of my Asian background as well I was quite pleased to have it.
Although my Pakistani family tell me that its not really a name because they
are Muslim, you see, whereas Nita isnt a recognised Muslim name . . . Her
middle name is iere,12 which apparently is the Amerindian name, the pre-
Columbus name for Trinidad.

Thus, although popular culture acted as a source of Nitas first name, both that
and her middle name are reflections of parts of the mixed ethnic affiliation that
Nicola and Leo want to pass on to her albeit that Nicola did not get it
completely right in the case of Nitas first name (we return to the issue of
getting it wrong in naming children below). Nitas middle name was chosen by
Leo, another illustration of the parent whose background is being signalled
through naming making the choice (see above).
Yvonne is Black British and her husband, Stefano, is of White British-
Italian parentage. Both are born-again Christians. They have a son from
Yvonnes previous relationship, with a name that reflects his biological fathers
African heritage, and two sons from their marriage. They are bringing up their
children primarily as Christians, with some recognition of their racial and
ethnic backgrounds. Both of their biological sons names Rabsario and

50 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
Whats in a name?

Zander have biblical origins, reflecting their beliefs, but have been adapted
to include their Italian heritage, as Yvonne explained:

Rabsarios name is biblical and it comes from Rabsaria, but with the male
and female and Italian names, if it was a boy, we made it to o so it became
Rabsario.13 And hes got a typical Italian middle name, Alberto. But my dads
name is Alberto. Hes a black man from Kingston and his name is Alberto!
So we gave him that middle name . . . Zander is from [a saint] but its spelt
with a z instead of an x. But thats also biblical, well Christian not
biblical . . .[Its nice to have a name] of some significance.

Making-up a name through adaptation but retaining affiliative significance is


also evident in Sartajs account. He is of White British-Sri Lankan parentage
and his wife, Carmen, is an American of Irish-Italian parentage.Although their
oldest child has been baptised as Catholic to please Carmens parents, neither
Carmen nor Sartaj (brought up nominally as Muslim) practise their religion.
Mainly, they are bringing up their children to acknowledge all aspects of their
racial and ethnic heritages. Sartaj described the affiliations that were symbol-
ised in their childrens full names:

Carmens father was an only son. He had one or two sisters and then he had
four daughters, so the family name is basically dying out with him. And
Carmen has kept her name. So Gias name is the first three letters of Carmens
surname. And of course its an unusual name, which was important. Unusual,
but one that people would still know and had some meaning . . .[My sons]
full name is Marco Patrick Kaluwitharana. Marco was Carmens paternal
grandfather, Patrick was her maternal grandfather and Kaluwitharana was of
course my paternal grandfather. So he has a heavy burden which weve laid
on him.

In a similar way, Daniel described a run of names for his children that denotes
racial/ethnic and religious affiliation. He himself is mixed both in terms of
ethnicity and faith, with White British and Polish, and Christian and Jewish
parentage. His wife, Meena, is of Sikh Indian origin. They are endeavouring to
provide their daughter and son Heera and Amar with a sense of being
ethnically cosmopolitan, able to fit in anywhere, and to know about a range of
religions but not to feel that they have to follow a particular one. Nonetheless
the childrens full names denote specific aspects of their heritage:

The fact theyve got Sikh first names and theyve also both got hes got
Singh, shes got Kaur as middle names, although they have also got English
middle names too. And then theyve got this weird surname which comes
from my family. I say thats because it was Polish and then they tried to
Anglicise it, so it became unrecognisable.

2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 51
Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

Sometimes though, attempts to mix affiliations in naming could go somewhat


awry. We have already noted how parents could get a supposed single affilia-
tion wrong in the case of Nicola (above), but indicating more than one sense
of belonging through a single name could be more fraught. Jafar is British
Asian from a Pakistani Muslim background, and Chloe is of White British
Christian origin. Neither practises their religion, although on their marriage
Jafar had promised his family that he would revive his lapsed faith. They have
two children, Kiran and Sophia. While Chloe and Jafar want the children to
recognise their mixed heritage, with their efforts at choosing a name for their
children reflecting this, they also want to transcend categorisation of their
children racially or religiously. They had tried hard to find a name for their son
that they liked that sounded both British and Asian, because Chloe had felt
that a Pakistani and Muslim first and family name sounded like somebody who
had nothing to do with me because I wasnt Muslim and I wasnt Pakistani and
he was not going to be either. Jafar described the consternation caused
amongst his family by the name they settled on, with ongoing repercussions for
their relationship with his father in particular:

After Kiran was born it just started to go a bit downwards. We called him
Kiran. We called him Imran at first which is a Pakistani Muslim name. And
Chloe said she felt a bit odd calling him a Muslim Christian14 name and a
surname, and I went fair enough, yeah, okay. So we changed it. We changed
the name to call him Kieran. And that caused trouble with my folks because
suddenly wed given him a Western name, oh, hold on a second, you said you
were Muslim but youre not that. And then we spelt it without an e which I
only later realised is actually worse. Because we tried to give it an Asian
spelling but actually given it a Hindu spelling, which is even worse. It would
have been easier if it had been a Christian name than a Hindu name . . . And
it is still an issue cos they [his parents] call him Imran . . . And every now and
again my dad used to get pissed off that people would call him Kiran, and my
elder brother and his wife have got their kids to call him Kiran Imran, so it
kind of makes my dad feel a bit better about it.

While wider family dislike linked to an undesirable affiliation indicated in a


childs name was not always the case, others apart from Chloe and Jafar also
faced this issue. The obviously Jewish name of Isaac eventually settled upon by
Nancy and Andrew for their son (discussed above), and the Italian inflections
in the names Rabsario and Zander that Yvonne and Stefano gave their sons
(discussed above) were not well received by the grandparents whose affilia-
tions were not indicated:
And his mother, I remember saying to her what do you think of the name
Isaac? I mean I cant remember what she said but she obviously didnt like
it. Because I said oh what do you think about the name? and I cant
remember her response but I thought clearly she doesnt approve of it.
(Nancy)

52 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
Whats in a name?

[They didnt like the names because] my mum is very English and my dad
just called them nicknames.
(Yvonne)

As discussed above, Daniel and Meena had given their children names that
reflected her Indian origin. Meena referred to the way that her father-in-law
had made a couple of jokes about Amar, you know, and said oh, little Abdul,
that sort of thing. Indeed, some years on from having named her children, she
now also had concerns about how her childrens names might put them at risk
of racism. Her comments in this respect also reflect her and Daniels desire to
position their children as ethnically cosmopolitan (see above):

And sometimes I think in terms of integration, you know, in retrospect it


would have been easier to have given them and then people would have
been you see, when you look at Heera and Amar obviously you see children
of a different ethnicity, but if you give them English names then people have
to think. You know, people have to think about well, hang on, theyre another
ethnicity but theyve got an English name.

Childrens own perceptions of their name

Children themselves, as they grew older, might also feel that the minority
ethnic or faith affiliation signified in their given name singled them out from
their peers. This obviously depended on where they lived. While many of the
parents in our sample reside in areas that the ONS Area Level Classification
categorises as multicultural metropolitan, Samir and Christine live in a small
village where Samir and their children Leila, Inaya and Faisal stand out as
the only non-White people. Samir is originally from Morocco and a Muslim,
Christine is White British and, while she has not converted to Islam, is happy
to bring up the children in the Muslim faith, as well as to know about their
Moroccan and British heritages. Both, however, want these affiliations to
involve a sense of choice rather than compulsion. Christine had agreed on
Arabic names for their children because she thought them beautiful, but
Samir was now concerned about how the children felt. Asked if his children
had ever experienced any prejudice, he replied:

Their names, thats all they told me. Oh, people cant pronounce our names
or why was I called Inaya, no one knows the name Inaya. Thats what they
say.

Perhaps those mothers and fathers who bestowed minority racial and ethnic
affiliative names as alternative or middle names, rather than the primary
given name, had such concerns about the reactions of wider society in the back
of their minds.

2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 53
Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

In contrast, Jamila, Mike and their three children live in a diverse multi-
cultural metropolitan area, and their childrens feelings about their names are
quite different to Christine and Samirs children. Jamila is British Asian from
a Kenyan Indian background, while Mike is White British and takes an accept-
ing but bemused attitude to Jamila bringing up their children as practising
Muslims. Their accounts of naming their eldest son differ somewhat. Mike
presented a we approach to the ethnic and kinship associations of the name:

When he was born we werent mixing with any of her family, her family had
nothing to do with Jam then. That was a difficult time that she was going
through, and so of course when he was born we gave him an English name,
Kevin. Kevin is his official name [on his birth certificate]. And he was named
after my granddad . . . Its Kevin William my middle name is William
Kevin William Green.

Jamila, however, stressed the way in which her affiliative preferences were
overridden by Mike and his wider family:

My family wasnt talking to me or anything like that, and when I had the baby
I wanted to name him Kareem, but it was no, thats an Indian name, you cant
have that, were calling him Kevin . . . Because my family wasnt talking to
me and I was sort of being bullied by his family. When he was born I was just
so messed up in my head.

While Mike and the wider Green family continued to call their son Kevin,
Jamila, their other children and Jamilas now reconciled family, call him
Kareem. And Kevin/Kareem had taken matters into his own hands, preferring
to be known as Kareem at school too. Given her own inclination, Jamila was
supportive of this, citing the importance of Kareems own choice and ability to
cope with two different names:

Hes used to [being called two different names] now. Hes so well adjusted to
it from being tiny, certain people call me Kareem and certain people
dont . . . I said to Mike, thats his choice, if thats what he wants to do then
he will do it . . . And Mike is fine with it now.

Mike, however, obviously still found it difficult to come to terms with his sons
decision, with its perceived rejection of his own affiliation (albeit Kareem still
had Mikes middle and family names):

That has been very difficult for me. Especially now that he is at school and he
wants to be known as Kareem. He has told everybody at school, all his friends
call him Kareem. And when his friends come round here and I call him
Kevin, they are all saying why is your dad calling you Kevin? He wants to be
known as Kareem. That has been the most difficult thing for me.

54 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
Whats in a name?

Kareems preference for his personal name, and its signaling of another side of
his collective kinship, ethnic and religious identification, was made in the
context of being just one of several with an Asian name at his school.
The different experiences of Samir and Christines and Mike and Jamilas
children each reveal aspects of the continued significance that the local can
have for people, in the face of more universalist assertions about the globalised
lives and cultures that are part of their parents relationship and their own
mixedness.

Conclusion

We have been concerned with how and why parents choose names for their
children, especially whether this process represents an individualistic choice
or reflects forms of collective affinity to family, race, ethnicity or faith? This
question arises in the context of a limited literature on the topic but one that
suggests that naming practices have shifted away from traditional custom
towards individualised taste, and debates about the implications of racial and
to a lesser extent faith categorisations and affiliations for mixed people
especially.
Our particular focus has been on parent couples who are from different
racial, ethnic and faith backgrounds, and we do not suggest that our findings
can be extrapolated to the wider population in the UK, especially in the
context of very little literature on the topic. Nonetheless, it is interesting that,
rather than seeking to transcend their childrens specific mixed background
and avoiding which side dilemmas through individualistic choice of personal
or given name, for the most part denoting collective affinity is still of signifi-
cance for many of the parents in our sample alongside taste. While most
parents wanted names for their children that they liked, and could draw on
popular culture, or adapt or construct names in an idiosyncratic fashion, they
also wanted names that symbolised their childrens heritages. A common
means of acknowledging naming customs, and of symbolising their childrens
mixed heritages and indeed their own connection to their children, was for
parents to give a run of personal names reflecting each aspect of their back-
grounds. Which name was first, however, could cause problems. Not only, in
some cases, did parents feel that their principal given name choice was not well
received by one side of their wider family, but depending on the diversity or
otherwise of the area where people lived where minority ethnic or faith
names were primary they could later experience concerns about how this
positioned their children in wider society and in particular might intensify the
risk of prejudice.
It would seem that postulations about the openness and contingency of
social life, and disembedding dynamics inherent in contemporary society do
not have full hold, at least when it comes to parent couples in mixed relation-
ships naming their children. Rather, in terms of the debates about the identity

2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 55
Rosalind Edwards and Chamion Caballero

of mixed race and faith children, there is a complex and sometimes difficult
pathway being carved out between pro-race and faith and kinship and
post approaches, whereby traditional boundaries, categories and customs are
being transcended at the same time as they retain salience and effect. This is
more akin to critical ideas about individualised reflexivity, choice and taste
being harnessed to re-embed longstanding categories and divisions in recon-
figured ways. These arguments, most notably expounded in relation to gender
and sexuality (Adkins, 1995, 2002; Heaphy, 2007), maintain that difference, and
the processes and hierarchies of power associated with it, still shape and
(re)limit peoples sense of who they are and of belonging. Moreover, in the
case of English kinship at least (Strathern, 1992), aspects of individualisation
itself can be understood as traditional, constantly reproduced in new or
reinvented forms (see also Thompson, 1996 more generally on tradition).
While the majority of parents presented a we portrayal of who chose their
childrens personal names, their discussions sometimes show that one parent
had far more influence than the other where a name was to reflect their
particular racial, ethnic or faith affiliation. Further, in some cases traditional
and gendered convention or expectation indicated that the father or a grand-
parent chose a childs name, or that a particular name should be given. In the
case of fathers and grandfathers, parents were engaging with the weight of
institutionalised custom, but mothers and grandmothers claims to name chil-
dren seem associated with more fragile kinship bases. Bucking these conven-
tions could cause difficulties in inter-generational relationships, and parents
often tried to avoid this where they could (albeit they sometimes mistakenly
made inappropriate decisions).
The complex collective affinity aspects of naming children that we have
identified as influential alongside individual taste in the personal names that
parents (or other family members) bestow is likely not to be evident in
research that relies simply on birth name registration records. While it is
important to identify overall trends, we suggest that a full understanding of
naming practices and what this says about the society that we live in can
only be gained through also asking parents about the process behind their
choice of their childrens names.
The personal names that parents (and others involved) give their children
represent a moment in time, at the start of a childs life. They symbolise
parents hopes and aspirations for who their children are and will be, to whom
and what they are connected, as well sometimes as what they hope will be left
aside. As we have noted in discussing our interviewees, life did not always pan
out as intended at that moment of naming, and childrens given birth names
did not always reflect the ways that mothers and fathers were currently nego-
tiating issues of difference and belonging in bringing up their children as they
grew older. Nonetheless, the complex collective affinity aspects of naming
children that our research identifies as influential alongside personal taste tells
us something about the society in which parent couples from different racial,
ethnic and faith backgrounds hope to live and raise their children one in

56 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation 2008 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review
Whats in a name?

which simple boundaries on the basis of race, ethnicity and faith can be
transcended at the same time as collective belonging is also valued.

London South Bank University Received 15 June 2007


Finally accepted 22 November 2007

Notes

1 See Baby named Metallica rocks Sweden, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/


6525475.stm.
2 See Danish name laws, http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1499398
3 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_name
4 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_personal_names for some extreme
examples.
5 This example of a bizarre name is taken from Mehrabian (2007). In fact it is an old Norse
name that is still in common use in Scandinanvia. What is or is not an unusual name is
context-dependent.
6 The new Mixed category in the 2001 census varied slightly depending on the regional census
in which it appeared (Caballero, 2005). There are debates about the most appropriate termi-
nology to use when referring to people whose parents are from different backgrounds: mixed
race, mixed ethnicity, mixed heritage, multiple heritage and so on (eg Barn and Harman, 2006;
Wright et al., 2003). This article, however, is focusing on mixed parental relationships, rather
than Mixed children themselves per se, and we use the term mixed to encompass the variety
of forms of race, ethnicity and faith mixing contained in our study.
7 In the UK this is despite the fact that black and white parentage accounts for under half of the
population who identified themselves as Mixed in the 2001 UK Census (48%).
8 The idea of mixedness as hybridity, however, can be a double-edged sword. For all the positive
accounts of mixed individuals strengths and achievments, and the social harmony represented
by racial mixing, there are as many pronouncements concerning the individual and group
degeneracy that hybridity produces, as with the marginal status noted above (Caballero, 2005;
Young, 1995).
9 The Parenting Mixed Children: Negotiating Difference and Belonging study is funded by the
Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
10 Other parts involve mapping the prevalence and location of parents from different racial/
ethnic and/or faith backgrounds in areas of England and Wales using data from the 2001 UK
Census (Caballero et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2007), a survey of parents (whatever their back-
grounds and relationships) of children in years 46 from 17 schools located across England and
Wales, and some generational case studies involving semi-structured interviews with children
and grandparents (Caballero et al., 2008).
11 Ghanaian tradition is for children to be given a name signifying the day of the week on which
they were born, in addition to their personal name. There are male and female names for each
of the seven days of the week.
12 The lower case initial is deliberate, as Nicola commented, much to the registrars frustration.
13 See Lieberson (2000) on masculine and feminine endings and beginnings of names.
14 By Muslim Christian name, Jafar means a Muslim first name.

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