On Ridiculing Names

I wasn't able to finish the thing I was supposed to share in time, so I'm going to replace it with an opinion piece written while very tired instead. (Might have to replace my plans for Day 4 too... we'll see.)

You may have seen graphs floating around about the reddest (Republicancore) and bluest (Democratcore) baby names. And maybe you've seen this picture before:


Well. I thought the picture was funny the very first time I saw it, and that's it. Hasn't been funny since. It just makes me feel :/ now. The reason is that I don't believe in making fun of names, except for under very narrow circumstances like naming your child a keysmash or consistently using the letter X because you're obsessed with dystopian scifi while being the one creating said future. It's overplayed and possibly counterproductive, and the Republican-coded names are interesting if you try to look into why they've sprung into popularity. Just like another culture whose names are oft-derided.

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