Unusable names
Jan. 23rd, 2013 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI saw a link to this article about character names you really can't use any more
http://ca.io9.com/5977781/these-character-names-should-be-banned-forever
The starting hypothesis is that some names have been used so much for particular stories that you give the whole plot away as soon as you give someone's name.
Sounds reasonable.
But the specific example is a problem:
Khan... I at least really hope Khan does not belong on that list. Because yes, there is a stereotype, there's Genghis Khan, there's Wrath of Khan, there are a lot of storied Khans out there.
But there are a lot of Khans, just in general.
Wiki has lists of most popular surnames. Khan is on the lists for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, countries with really rather a lot of people. And not coincidentally it's the 10th most popular name in Greater London, and the 3rd most common in Luton or York.
Wiki searching suggests the name is much less common in America. But even with an uncommon name, you're talking about thousands of people. Much more than thousands, in grand total.
And it's very strongly associated with a particular ethnic group.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Khan
Which is a film starring a very famous guy called Khan about a guy trying to tell the President of the USA that his name is Khan and he is not a terrorist. He gets arrested a bunch pretty much because the American police and security guys in this story basically don't believe that Khan, as a general category, does not mean terrorist. (To oversimplify. It is a great film, very epic, lots of layers.)
To say that it's no surprise Khan is a bad guy is too close to saying it's no surprise that Asians in stories are bad guys
and *rudeword* to that.
Use the name. Write whole families. Have them do things that are nothing to do with evil whatsoever.
It's just not the same thing as naming someone Cain in a story. The literary connotations of that name aren't dragging around after an entire ethnic group making lives a misery.
Khan is not bad.
And if that is a surprise we need to use the name more, not less.
http://ca.io9.com/5977781/these-character-names-should-be-banned-forever
The starting hypothesis is that some names have been used so much for particular stories that you give the whole plot away as soon as you give someone's name.
Sounds reasonable.
But the specific example is a problem:
You can't have a character named Cain, Kane, or Kayne (or, for that matter, Khan), hanging around in the background of a story and act like the fact that they are bad has been sprung on the reader.
Khan... I at least really hope Khan does not belong on that list. Because yes, there is a stereotype, there's Genghis Khan, there's Wrath of Khan, there are a lot of storied Khans out there.
But there are a lot of Khans, just in general.
Wiki has lists of most popular surnames. Khan is on the lists for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, countries with really rather a lot of people. And not coincidentally it's the 10th most popular name in Greater London, and the 3rd most common in Luton or York.
http://surname.sofeminine.co.uk/w/surnames/439-greater-london/most-common-surnames.html
10. Khan 14 502
http://surname.sofeminine.co.uk/w/surnames/surname-khan.html
KHAN
In Great Britain : 80 429 people share the surname Khan according to our estimation
The surname Khan is the 80th most common name in Great Britain.
Luton Khan is the 3rd surname 3 355 people
York Khan is the 3rd surname 4 957 people
Wiki searching suggests the name is much less common in America. But even with an uncommon name, you're talking about thousands of people. Much more than thousands, in grand total.
And it's very strongly associated with a particular ethnic group.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Khan
Which is a film starring a very famous guy called Khan about a guy trying to tell the President of the USA that his name is Khan and he is not a terrorist. He gets arrested a bunch pretty much because the American police and security guys in this story basically don't believe that Khan, as a general category, does not mean terrorist. (To oversimplify. It is a great film, very epic, lots of layers.)
To say that it's no surprise Khan is a bad guy is too close to saying it's no surprise that Asians in stories are bad guys
and *rudeword* to that.
Use the name. Write whole families. Have them do things that are nothing to do with evil whatsoever.
It's just not the same thing as naming someone Cain in a story. The literary connotations of that name aren't dragging around after an entire ethnic group making lives a misery.
Khan is not bad.
And if that is a surprise we need to use the name more, not less.