WEBVTT - Death of a Name | Reviving a Mobit 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:05.280 Yes, I would like to ask you a question. Did 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:08.360 you guys like to answer questions for us? A while back, 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:12.280 I visited my alma mater. I'm talking about my first 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:17.120 alma mater, Wood Acres Elementary School in Bethesda, Maryland. Him 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.240 mister Raka, I went to this school. When I first 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.119 came to wood Acres in the third grade, I wasn't Mo. 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:28.560 I was Maurice Raka. Maurice, a name which felt hopelessly 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.159 out of style. I was the only Maurice in the 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:35.400 whole school. But maybe the name has a better rep Now, Okay, 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.800 I'm gonna ask each of you question, and that's what 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.320 I've come back to find out. I started off slowly, though, 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.560 asking about other names which peaked long ago. 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.360 When I say the name Mildred, what do you think of. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:51.720 London? 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.200 I think of an old British person. 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.200 All yeah, yeah, I agreed, me too. Okay, what about 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:00.279 what about the name Tha? 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:02.640 An old lady? 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:03.680 That's fat? 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:05.760 I agree? 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:07.440 I agree, I agree. 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:09.160 It is unmity here. 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.920 I must confess. I get what they're saying. In the 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:18.160 twenty first century, names like Mildred and Bertha conjure certain images. 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:20.800 Is it the er? Is it the thaw. 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:26.920 I think that, yeah, all of it just all together. 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:30.160 Yeah, what about the name. 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:35.080 Todd A tall person that plays golf kind of I'm 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:39.400 like middle aged, like in his forties, tall brown hair. 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:40.919 I think they're kind of weird. 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:43.039 Yeah, that's a tar that's a tall. 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:48.160 That's finally I mustered the courage to ask them about 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:49.400 my name. 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:51.920 What do you think of the name Maurice? 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.320 I think of like an old French dude, like a 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:58.880 young person who travels a lot, maybe doesn't. 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.000 Have a home, see on the run from the law. 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.440 Why is he Maybe he just kind of like stays 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.200 in hotels and just goes everywhere. 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:07.360 Like some like singer. 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:10.480 Maybe that's like they're not really known. 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:12.840 Yeah, they're like a local kind of person, but they 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.800 still chase, they move a lot. 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:20.400 Not really known, a local kind of person out But 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.320 it turns out there is a traveling singer named Maurice 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:30.600 van Hokee travel and Maurice is also a portly frenchman 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.560 in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Help don't help me 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:41.240 for Ree's wait, I need to help. But the name 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.360 Maurice maybe permanently on the way out. We Maurice's reached 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.400 the height of our popularity in the nineteen twenties, when 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.880 there were an average of about sixteen hundred born annually. 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.880 Now just a few hundred come into the world each year. 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.400 What makes a name rise and fall in the ranks? 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.760 But makes a name pretty and popular to one generation 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:07.840 and unique or downright ugly to the next. From CBS 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:14.000 Sunday Morning and iHeart I'm Maurice Raka and this is mobituaries. 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:30.160 This moment the death of a name. I knew a 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:34.000 kid in elementary school named Jeff Heebner. He was friendly, 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.960 he was good at soccer, he was cool. He could 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.480 introduce himself with confidence. Because he was a Jeff. He 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.840 perfectly embodied his own name. I, on the other hand, 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.440 always felt awkward telling people my name. Maybe it was 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:53.000 because growing up I knew of only three other Maurice's. 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.160 There was children's book author Maurice Sendak, who wrote the 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.960 classic Where the Wild Things Are. Was the Maurice from 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.800 that Steve Miller band song The Joker. 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:10.320 Becoming Maice I speak of. 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.480 That was kind of cool, but that was canceled out 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.159 by French entertainer Maurice Chevalier. I m I see a 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.800 little girl of five or six or seven. 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:24.279 I can't resist the joy or. 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:29.080 Spell that song he sang in Gigi Thick Kevin fall 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.040 a little girl. I can't believe he hasn't been canceled 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.040 for that, But that was pretty much it. I was 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.839 born Maurice Albert Raca. My mother tells me my father 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:43.240 was the one who really wanted to name me Maurice. 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.200 She would have preferred Gabriel. My father is no longer living, 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:49.719 so I can't know for sure, but I think he 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:54.440 wanted something on the gentler side, since Raca can sound brusque. 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.240 But I didn't like it. 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:58.960 At one point I thought maybe I should go by 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.640 al I mean, which had been crazy. I mean, like, 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:04.240 when I think about it, I'm not crazy. It just 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:08.840 would have sounded odd al Raca. I talked to one 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.440 of my former teachers about it. That day I visited 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.680 wood Acres. Her name is Miss Venisi, and she was 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.839 one of my all time favorites. She was patient, kind, 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:24.120 and impossibly glamorous. More about that in a bit. Turns 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.680 out she could have made a pretty decent therapist too. 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.440 Now you said you didn't like your name, so were 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:32.840 you teased in school? 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:33.159 You know. 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.760 I don't know that I was ever teased for my name. 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:40.479 It just felt so different, it felt foreign. Everything changed 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.239 when I graduated from Wood Acres to Pile Middle School, 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.960 and oddly enough, it was thanks to the aptly named 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:48.960 Jeff Heebner. 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.760 I know him, I mean, I remember him. He was 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:53.160 very blonde, very blonde. 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:55.880 And when I went to Pile, it's kind of scary 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.599 all the elementary schools feeding into the big junior high 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:00.839 and the fizz ed teacher there of the first days 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.440 did roll call and said, you know, when I get 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.599 to your name, if you have a name you prefer 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.640 you as, I'll write it in the in the book. 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:10.000 And then she said Maurice Rock. 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.839 I said here, and then Jeff Heapner said, he's not Maurice, 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.640 He's Mo. And that's kind of how I got my. 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.880 I was going to ask you, so Jeff just came 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.040 out with it and you preferred it obviously. 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:23.280 Yeah, kind of I liked that. 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:25.640 It was easy, yeah, and it kind of popped. But 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:27.640 now I love when people call me Maurice. So you 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:29.080 have to call me for this episode. 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:29.599 I'm Maurice. 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.560 I wasn't sure and what to call you, whether I 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:33.960 should call you, Maurice Amo. 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.960 And if there's anyone who would understand this kind of 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:42.120 confusion over one's own name, it's Miss Vanisi, Mildred Vanisi. 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.120 Despite what those kids said earlier, Mildred Venisi is not British, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.400 but the granddaughter of Italian immigrants. 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.400 And there was a custom I doubt if it's still 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:57.400 in existence, that the firstborn I was the firstborn is 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.640 named either for the father's mother or the father's father, 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.640 of course, dependent upon the sex. My grandmother's name was Camella, 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:12.160 and I'm sure that my parents, being first generation, wanted 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:18.880 an anglicized name. Kamella's were called Milly. Millie is Mildred. 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.040 Growing up, Miss Venisi didn't know any other Mildred's and 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.080 she didn't really like her name. Lucky for her, she 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.600 too got a nickname that eventually stuck. 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.400 Somewhere along the line. I started being called Milly. Not 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.640 by family, my mother and father. I was still Mildred, 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.720 but my generation, my friends started calling me that. My 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:45.320 sisters call me Milly, and so now I introduced myself 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.480 that way. It just happened, just happened. I think the 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:54.240 name Millie flows better. It's a little more musical than Mildred. 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.080 I just think Mildred is harsh. 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:58.680 She's not thoroughly modern Mildred. 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.080 No, right, that wouldn't sound good. That just would not 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:02.720 sound good. 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.880 I also never thought Mildred was an appropriate moniker for 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:16.360 Miss Venisi, with her luxuriant mane of dark curly hair, 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:21.120 her Jackie O sunglasses, her Jordash jeans or were they 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:22.040 Gloria Vanderbilt? 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:22.480 Look? 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:24.800 All I know is that no other teacher looked like 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:29.120 she just walked off the setup and Aaron spelling nighttime soap. Honestly, 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.640 Miss VANSI was so fabulous I could barely contain myself. 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.160 I don't know if you'll remember, so if you don't, 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:37.559 it's kind of like a confession. 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:38.040 I guess. 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:43.360 But I remember in fifth grade waiting outside the all 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.559 Purpose room for lunch. But when you walked by, I said, Hey, 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:51.840 what's shake and Millie? He wheeled around. Yeah, and I 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.240 think you said something like, did you ever call me 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.760 that again? I, Miss Venisi, I probably did. 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:00.440 Teach. 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.200 The name Mildred reached its peak in nineteen twenty, when 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:09.320 more than eighteen thousand babies were named Mildred. It was 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.600 the sixth most popular girls name that year popular enough 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.880 that there are a number of notable Mildreds throughout history. 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:23.080 Mildred J. Hill was the composer of Good Morning to All, 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.120 the melody of which became the Happy Birthday Song. 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.679 And then that movie Mildred Piers with Germany Crawft that 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:30.840 must have been in the forties. 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.960 Now I'm sure of one thing, at least, I want 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:34.720 my daughter back. 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:41.160 Mildred Gillers an American who broadcast Nazi propaganda from Germany 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:44.440 during World War Two, also known as Axis Sally. She 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.920 was indicted after the war in charge with trees and Okay, 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:48.280 so that's not a good Mildred. 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.199 That's not a good Mildred. But I think I've heard 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:51.120 of Axis Sally. 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.520 But after hitting its popularity peak in the early twentieth century, 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.960 Mildred slowly slid down the list of the thousand most 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:05.400 popular names. In twenty seventeen, only eighty three newborn girls 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.480 were named Mildred in the US. Recent users on one 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:13.440 baby naming website dismissed the name as sounding too much 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:18.400 like Mildew wrote another makes me think of dreading something. 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:22.360 I was the only Mildred in all my years at 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.679 school there was a period of time when a lot 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.040 of girls are named Karen, and there was another period 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.320 of time where a lot of girls name Janet. I 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.400 don't know, but I just think that names have cycles, 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:38.079 and maybe something triggers. 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:42.439 It, as she so often was when I was growing up. 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.079 Mildred Venisi is right. 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:48.679 Coming up. 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.840 I'm going to talk with linguist John mcwardo about what 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:56.040 makes names pretty, prickly or popular. But first in in 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:02.800 memoriam for another name that left us, Hortense. We hardly 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:08.240 knew you. Despite your French origins. Your name lacked the crisp, 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.240 bright bubbliness of champagne and the addictive qualities of your 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.800 country's cheeses. Disney must have had a thing for you, 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:20.200 because Hortense McDuck is Donald Duck's mother. Donald gets an 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:24.439 ostrich named Hortense, and his uncle Scrooge McDuck named his 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.960 horse Hortense Alas Disney was never going to create a 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.680 princess Hortense as a name, You're just not pretty. You 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.640 barely cracked the top four hundred names in the US 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:39.800 around the turn of the twentieth century, and you slid 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:43.920 off the top one thousand after nineteen forty one. Now, 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.920 ordensia does have a nice frame to it. It's the 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:52.040 Spanish version of hortense or densia also means hydrangia. To 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.840 be clear, I'm not suggesting anyone named their daughter hydrangea hortense. 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:08.559 You are strictly past tense, gone, and yes forgotten. To 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.360 understand better why names come and go, I talked with 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:17.440 an expert, Columbia University Associates Professor of Comparative literature and 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.360 linguist John mcward. How did you become a John? 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:26.240 I'm John Hamilton mcwarter the fifth, and John Hamilton mccuorter 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.400 the first was a slave, So I was named because 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.480 of that relentless succession and the idea that you don't 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:34.120 break it. And as a matter of fact, I know 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.040 if my father hadn't been John Hamilton mcquarter the fourth, 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:39.880 I would be named Bruce. That's what my mother would 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.199 have chosen. And I would have named my son John, 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.840 except he's a girl, and so the name had to 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.359 stop with my two girls. So she has my middle. 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.880 Name, Johanna. In Italian, you'd have Johnny and Johanna in 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.200 English Johnette, none of them. That just sounds like a 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:01.280 tiny little bathroom. We live in an efficiency. We only 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.640 have room for a John after John mcwarter was born 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.160 in nineteen sixty five, when John was the second most 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.400 popular name in the country, and the name John isn't 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.240 going away. It's still in the top thirty names for 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.040 boys in the US. But if you go back in 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.440 time to the early twentieth century, John was far and 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.880 away the number one boy's name. America was producing John's 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.840 in mass quantities. It was like the model t of names. 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:31.840 In fact, if you were born in that era, it 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.240 was really common for you to have a name that 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.600 was in the top ten. People just seemed to want 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:38.240 to fit in. 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.440 You go back to that time and there is a 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.600 sense of what a normal American person is that would 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.000 strike us today as almost bizarrely homogenous. And that's not 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.439 to say that there weren't some ripples going on around 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.960 the edges, but there was a certain sense that America was, 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:59.440 you know, turkey and apple pie, and that's what one was. 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:01.440 One was very, very very white. 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:06.160 Well that's so interesting because aren't there those are competing impulses, right. 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:08.960 I want my child to have a name that makes 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.080 him or her special. I also want my child to 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.360 have a name that makes him or her fit in. 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:16.480 And that right. 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:18.920 So and back then, no special. I mean, if you 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.320 think of somebody naming their child in eighteen sixty five, 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.480 most people did not want something that would make the 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.320 child feel special, or it would be something going on 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.280 with the middle name, something that was less known. You 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:30.160 might play with it. 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.280 Even when I was in school in the seventies and eighties, 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:38.200 I remember the popular names were really popular. Oh yeah, 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:42.040 I mean in junior high I was drowning in Jennifer's. 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:43.840 Oh, they were everywhere. That's right. 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:44.720 What was going on? 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:46.000 Jennifers and Jenny's. 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.720 That's right, there's so many Jennifers. Oh, it was a 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.359 tsunami of them in school. 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:54.640 Seven Jennifers. 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.920 But the days of a few names dominating are over. 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.000 At its peak, a full five percent of all newborn 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:09.240 male babies were named John one in twenty Fast forward 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.400 to twenty twenty one, and the top names for females 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.440 and males, Olivia and Liam, made up only around one 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.600 percent of babies born that year. In other words, the 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:25.400 most popular names are less popular. Parents today shoot for originality. 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.200 There's a sense that if you're going to name a child. 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:31.960 You spontaneously reach out and you think, how can we 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:33.440 have a little bit of fun with this, so you 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.240 don't want to torture your child. I once knew this 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:43.280 poor little boy. His parents had named him Rotunda Thanksgiving Jones. Oh, 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.600 and it was because he was born when John F. 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.600 Kennedy was laid out in the rotunda, and they named 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.120 him Thanksgiving just because, and of course he was made 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:51.520 fun of. 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.560 It sounds like a song, and have forgotten Gershwin musical. 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:59.200 That's because there were songs like that Rotunda Thanksgiving. Gents, 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:05.080 you can and this guy really had that name. It's 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.160 a tragic thing, but you want your child to be 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.240 somewhat different, probably not too different, but I think most 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.720 people think not the average thing, unless it's named after 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.280 a grandparent or a father or something like that. 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.400 John mcwarter says that trend towards uniqueness and away from 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.520 uniformity tracks with broader changes in American society. 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.760 I think it's very much a spirit of individuality, and 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.080 of course many people would say that the spirit of 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.400 individuality is part of what being an American is. But 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.400 there's an extreme that happens, and I think it happens 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.640 after the nineteen sixties, with the sense of what was 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.520 called the Me generation in the seventies, and then the 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.920 greater respect for and awareness of the diversity of americannesses 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.920 that you get that really becomes default starting in the eighties. 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:56.080 That's when a certain browning of the culture happens. Think 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.040 about nineteen eighty four is when The Cosby Show becomes 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.560 a big hit. Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:04.399 America and I new Miss America. 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:07.720 There's Mavnasillams. 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.359 Beverly Hills. Cop is almost the biggest selling movie in 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.160 the country. You know, this is the cleanest and nicest 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:17.359 police card ever been. 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:17.840 In in my life. 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.720 That's only eighty four and that's just black diversity. I 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.800 think we've become much more comfortable with America not just 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.240 being my three sons starting in the nineteen eighties. 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:29.840 As a part of that change, there's a shift in 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:34.679 naming traditions, especially among Black Americans. Nineteen eighty is a 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:39.760 particularly interesting year for naming kids. That year, sixty percent 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.080 of black girls are given a unique name, one that 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.679 no one else has. Mcwarterur points out that after the 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:51.120 civil rights movement of the nineteen sixties, afrocentrism gained traction 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:52.800 in the seventies and eighties. 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.080 So once you get past integration as the watch cry, 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.160 and there's a certain kind of in some ways healthy 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:05.320 separatism that's afoot, then it becomes natural to be comfortable 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.320 making up a name. And so what happens, frankly is 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.080 I've often thought that black girls in particular tend to 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.439 have more interesting names because it's considered okay to just 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:16.119 make it up. And what you get are all of 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:20.240 these beautiful African style names for people born in the 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:24.600 United States. And it's all rather pretty, but it really explodes, 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:29.000 especially with the sense of Africa and the African heritage 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.960 rising in the nineteen seventies. That's when you get little 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:33.040 girls named Mikiba. 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.880 Well, I'm going to impress you right now and tell you, 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:40.439 and I'm sorry if it sounds boastful. In college, I 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:42.880 was in a production of Little Shop of Horrors with 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:47.680 Katanji Brown now Katanji Brown Jackson. I was Seymour, thank 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.879 you very much. She was run at and she was fantastic. 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:55.080 She was fantastically you notice, yeah, and she yeah, she 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:59.560 was not Crystal. I'm suddenly forging thelast one's name. But anyways, 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.520 did improv comedy together? But her name, I know you've 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:07.000 written about her name improv. H Wow, she thinks really funny? 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:08.280 Is she funny? She is? 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:08.879 I'm telling you. 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.720 We will because we are going to make sure that 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:18.080 hearings are now you know, the simulcast on Comedy Central. 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:19.359 I because she's that funny. 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:21.080 I want to know that about her. Yeah, that's a 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:23.679 perfect example that her name is Katanji. If she were 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.959 a generation older, her name would probably be Carolyn. But 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.520 now it is Katanji Brown Jackson. And that's ordinary starting 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.040 especially with women of her generation. It's nice to see. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.720 I mean, Katanji is a much more interesting name than Carolyn. 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:42.080 But one group of people, we expect original names from celebrities. 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.840 It's practically a rite of passage. The first time I 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.440 can remember this happening is in two thousand and four 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.200 when Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin named their daughter Apple. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.600 At the time it was weird. Now totally normal. Kylie 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.320 Jenner has a daughter named Stormy, and it's not with 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:02.200 a y, it's with an eye at the end. Yeah, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.320 And Elon Musk has won that somebody can pronounce it's 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:07.560 a bunch of symbols. I think by the way I 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.480 looked it up, it's pronounced x ash a twelve. 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.320 All of that is because they are public figures, and 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:15.560 so for them, naming is a public act. And if 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:17.480 it's going to be a public act, then you want 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.159 to do something that's going to stand out rather than 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:22.920 something that's going to bore people. If somebody like Gwyneth 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:25.960 Paltrow sets off a tradition, next thing, you know, everybody's 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:26.400 doing it. 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.720 So it's sort of a celebrity contagion in a way. 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:30.639 I think I would put it just that way. What 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.320 Jay Z and Beyonce Blue Ivy. That's really beautiful, but 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.119 it's not African. It's not the usual tradition. That's something 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:40.680 they came up with all by themselves, as people who 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:44.240 knew that everybody was watching them having that child. So 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.359 that's where you get that tradition. And that seems to 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.960 actually cut across races with celebrities too. Yeah, it's it's 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.119 a show. It's a it's a kind of display, And 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:55.280 I don't mean that in a bad way. 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.160 Most parents aren't going to resort to their kids after 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:06.120 a combination of math aircraft and Elvin symbols representing artificial intelligence, 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:10.640 which is what Musk's baby's name represents. But throughout history, 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:15.359 parents have often taken naming cues from pop culture. Well, 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:17.000 I'm going to quiz you on it right now. Actually 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:21.160 it's really fun, so I'll start off really easy. Shirley 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:23.920 saw a dramatic spike between nineteen thirty two and nineteen 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.720 thirty five because of I wish mother. 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.480 Hair of Little Shirley Temple. And if you think about it, 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.520 nobody is named Shirley before then, and then all of 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.720 a sudden, everybody's grandmother is named Shirley by the late 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.800 twentieth century, and now the name is impossible. Meet little Shirley. 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:45.800 Never Michelle entered the top twenty in nineteen sixty five 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:47.280 because that was the same year. 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:49.440 It has to be because of that song. 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:52.800 My Bell. 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:56.120 Yeah, the Beatles song. 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.879 Nobody is named Michelle. Maybe in France ants you're just 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.200 kind of guessing, but not here, I mean you Michelle's. 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:06.800 Yeah, we've got a lot of Michelle's running around, women 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:07.880 named Michelle. 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:11.120 Women, but not here, not before then. 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:12.920 Oh, I see what you're saying, Like, there's. 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.200 No first lady named Michelle. Right, and if you think 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.639 about it, Michelle there was no first lady name Michelle 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.520 good point right, only only after and she's named around that. 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:24.159 Time Michelle Polk. 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:31.399 No Michelle Quincatams, Michelle quin No suffragette named Michelle, you 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:33.119 know that's that's right, it's Michelle Katie's. 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.080 The name Layelah first appeared in the top one thousand 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:41.120