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Kevinism

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Re: Kevinism

#51

Post by notahacker »

ummwhat wrote: post #42
Freak_NL wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the jurisdiction. In the Netherlands changing your given name(s) is possible if you can convince a judge of its negative impact on you. Gender transitioning is an obvious rationale, but a well-worded explanation of why your current name doesn't match who you are or damages you (e.g., past traumatic experiences, abuse, but also a name simply not suiting you) tends to suffice. It's not something you can g…

The US is much more liberal about this. You have to pay a fee and put in some paperwork and make an announcement in a news paper with a certain amount of readers and a judge will deny requests that violate a very limited set of common sense criteria. Sometimes the judges can get a bit lazy about actually filtering requests. Jesus Christ literally lives in New York.

In the UK it's even more liberal - you need a piece of paper and some witnesses' signatures. I knew Mr 118 Taxi back when he thought a name change might help promote his business...

Re: Kevinism

#52

Post by Freak_NL »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #43
Tharkun wrote: post #11

Naming things is hard. Naming people is harder. Many (most?) expecting parents spend hours researching names online or in "1000 baby name ideas"-books. My parents love my name. I hate it. There are too many of us for names to be a unique identifier. First names are too generic to say anything about us, and they're usually assigned at birth, before any of our traits are known. Family names are even worse; here's your…

> Many (most?) expecting parents spend hours researching names online or in "1000 baby name ideas"-books. Too right. When we had to name a child, I took all the CSV files of every child names in Scotland for last 15 years (Scottish Government provides all the raw statistics for every name) and loaded the data set into elasticsearch where I was then able to construct visualisations and trends of candidate names and ge…

That… is certainly an interesting approach. Did you look for particular characteristics?

My wife and I had a son this year, and took care to give him a name that would work well in any situation. He has two given names (we do too), so he has a backup name in case the first one doesn't suit him later on (my wife uses her second name, because her parents figured it suited her better after a year).

We didn't use any technology beyond the publicly availalbe Dutch database for given names in use, but we did look for a pair of names that would look good on a resume as well as work well in daily conversation. They are old names that should hold up well regardless of what is en vogue at the moment.

I hope he likes them.

Re: Kevinism

#53

Post by foozed »

moomin wrote: post #32
nothrabannosir wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... people being racist or homophobic without ever meeting people of the "other group". In my limited experience, this is the norm, not an exception.

What is even more entertaining is that when they do know people from the other group, they have a habit of treating them as shining exceptions to the rule, not questioning whether or not the rule is even valid.

"no, that's different. [name] is my friend!"

Re: Kevinism

#54

Post by ohashi »

mosselman wrote: post #4

The funny thing is that Kevin is not a very praised name in general either: https://www.reddit.com/r/StoriesAboutKevin/ “What is a Kevin? A Kevin is someone who consistently or greatly shows a complete lack of intelligence through incompetence of social and societal norms, or is purposefully antagonistic in their poor decision making. Remember the kid in your class who would constantly get in trouble for really dumb…

As a Kevin, reading the original story that spawned that subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/219w2o/whos_the_...) is pretty entertaining. I don't know that I've ever felt discriminated based on my name, but I've had people tell me things (namely in Germany/Germans) about the association.

Re: Kevinism

#55

Post by Tomte »

nailer wrote: post #8

The article also mentioned Horst as having a particular association - what was the association?

Friends called their unborn "Horst" so that people (including themselves) had a name with which they could to refer to the future child, but at the same time the choice made obvious that it would not be the real name given after birth and that they did not want to disclose it beforehand.

I suppose that says something about the name's image.

Re: Kevinism

#56

Post by Tomte »

Another strange difference between countries' perceptions is the Swedish princess Estelle's name.

I was on vacation in Sweden shortly thereafter, and while just about every German thought the name atrocious, befitting a prostitute, all the Swedes found it charming.

Re: Kevinism

#57

Post by denton-scratch »

notahacker wrote: post #51
ummwhat wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is much more liberal about this. You have to pay a fee and put in some paperwork and make an announcement in a news paper with a certain amount of readers and a judge will deny requests that violate a very limited set of common sense criteria. Sometimes the judges can get a bit lazy about actually filtering requests. Jesus Christ literally lives in New York.

In the UK it's even more liberal - you need a piece of paper and some witnesses' signatures. I knew Mr 118 Taxi back when he thought a name change might help promote his business...

You don't even need that. You can just start using a new name - perfectly legal in the UK.[1]

You need to execute a 'deed poll' if you want the new name recorded on official documents, or accepted by organisations like banks. [1] www.gov.uk/change-name-deed-poll

Re: Kevinism

#58

Post by snth »

Sean1708 wrote: post #49
arethuza wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps apart from Scotland where it is a fairly common part of place names (e.g. Kyle of Lochalsh) - having said that, I don't think it's a very common first name here, perhaps because of that?

I'm English and I've also never heard of the name Kyle having any kind of prejudice, might just be an American thing?

I've never heard of a negative stereotype about Kyle in America either.

Re: Kevinism

#59

Post by glhaynes »

Sean1708 wrote: post #49
arethuza wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps apart from Scotland where it is a fairly common part of place names (e.g. Kyle of Lochalsh) - having said that, I don't think it's a very common first name here, perhaps because of that?

I'm English and I've also never heard of the name Kyle having any kind of prejudice, might just be an American thing?

American, never heard anything bad about the name Kyle.

Re: Kevinism

#60

Post by amyjess »

ummwhat wrote: post #42
Freak_NL wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the jurisdiction. In the Netherlands changing your given name(s) is possible if you can convince a judge of its negative impact on you. Gender transitioning is an obvious rationale, but a well-worded explanation of why your current name doesn't match who you are or damages you (e.g., past traumatic experiences, abuse, but also a name simply not suiting you) tends to suffice. It's not something you can g…

The US is much more liberal about this. You have to pay a fee and put in some paperwork and make an announcement in a news paper with a certain amount of readers and a judge will deny requests that violate a very limited set of common sense criteria. Sometimes the judges can get a bit lazy about actually filtering requests. Jesus Christ literally lives in New York.

> and make an announcement in a news paper with a certain amount of readers

And even that depends on what state you're in. For example, Texas doesn't require it (source: I legally changed my name in Texas in 2014).

And some states that do require it can waive the requirement if you can demonstrate that you have legitimate privacy concerns and the judge is sympathetic; e.g. if you're changing your name to hide from an abusive family member or if you're transgender.

On the other hand, many states require a clean record in order to change your name. Using Texas as an example again, I had to do a fingerprint background check before they would even schedule my court date. My record was clean, but if I had a criminal record, I would've only been allowed to change my name under limited circumstances.

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