Racefail in NaNoWriMo forums

[asterroc]

Working on my primary NaNoWriMo story since I finished the short story. I realized my brain was dry and I wasn't coming up with good names for my characters, so I turned to online name generators. All the names sounded too bland, so I picked Irish from the dropdown menu. Then I realized I'd only been picking white names, so I found me a nice Hispanic name. Then I wanted something else for my last character and decided I wanted part of the name Asian, and part Islamic, mostly for variety. I could retcon that this hodge-podge fits her do-anything character, or that it demonstrates the genetic mixing that takes place in a fixed population, but really I just wanted something new. I posted to the NaNoWriMo forums b/c I was having a hard time finding an Islamic name generator online, and the Asian names I found were either androgynous (to American me) or else were stupid anglicisms like "Beautiful Tree" or "Strong Wind". I got a bunch of helpul replies too, and then I got this one.

The thing is the name should fit the character and their heritage, so if you're not going to have a particular reason to make them of a particular ethnicity, but just want a name for the sake of having a "non-White" name and not really reflecting the culture that comes with the name, then I think you're better off sticking to Caucasian names. [source]

Her (?) point was I feel two-fold: (1) names should have meaning, (2) white is the default. I could argue the first for hours, but the latter really ticked me off. I replied.

But why should Caucasian names be the default? I'm not Caucasian, does that mean I should make all the names of all my characters be the same race as me? Of course not, that'd be a ridiculous thing to do unless I was writing for an audience that I knew was composed primarily of people of my race and I wanted to exclude people NOT of my race. It is similarly ridiculous to have every single name be Caucasian unless I'm writing for an audience of only Caucasians and I want to exclude non-Caucasians.

Who knows if she'll read it, or if it'll get through, but at least I think I made my point for anyone further who reads it.

Edit: She may have also been making a third point that using a non-white name but giving the character all white personality characteristics would be insensitive. *shrug*

Comments

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I needed some name. I could just keep writing "Person #4". The town has a placeholder name and I don't mind changing the people's names later, but I wanted SOME name.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I understand that "Daisuke" is easier to flow from the fingers than "Person #4." The necessary shifting to the number row makes it tougher, imho. I just meant that the deliberation on the ethnicities of the names could wait. But maybe you are saying that you wanted to avoid unintentionally being anglo-normative even in placeholder names?

[sirroxton.livejournal.com]

I have to imagine that as you write, the characters become increasingly real and start, you know, telling you things about themselves. I have a hard time envisioning a writing process where I could feel comfortable swapping out names. Although I suppose you could leave the dirty work to a heartless editor. ;-)

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Even if I do not intend to make the non-white characters stereotypical of race X, the names still might influence my writing of the characters somewhat.