BEST OF HMS PODCASTS - WEDNESDAY - March 12, 2025 - When Did Naming Your Kids Become So Fashionable - March 2024

Summary

Holmberg's Morning Sickness - Arizona: Best of HMS Podcasts
Episode: When Did Naming Your Kids Become So Fashionable
Release Date: March 12, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Holmberg's Morning Sickness (HMS) on 98 KUPD, hosts John Holmberg, Brady Bogen, Bret Vesely, and Dick Toledo delve into the intriguing and often controversial topic of contemporary naming trends. Titled "When Did Naming Your Kids Become So Fashionable," the discussion centers around the surge in unique and unconventional baby names, particularly among white communities, and the cultural implications thereof.

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The Evolution of Baby Naming Trends

The conversation begins with the hosts expressing their frustration over the increasing trend of unconventional names. They note a shift from traditional naming conventions to more creative and, in their view, "dumb" names. John Holmberg initiates the discussion by highlighting how names that were once predominantly used within the Black community are now being adopted widely by white parents.

Notable Quote:
“Didn't even black people used to laugh at that when they're Shaquanda and Robitussin and all the kids that were running around...” — Host 2 [01:15]

This observation sets the stage for a broader conversation about cultural appropriation in naming.

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Examples of Unusual and Controversial Names

The hosts provide a plethora of examples illustrating the trend:

• Orangelo & L'Mangelo: Names inspired by food items like lemon and orange jello.

  Notable Quote:
  “L'Angelo and his brother Orangelo, which was his parents named them lemon and orange in the cupboard...” — Host 2 [01:15]

• Military-Inspired Names: Children named after military ranks, such as Sergeant or Lieutenant.

  Notable Quote:
  “But now you know you've done something and black people are laughing at this...” — Host 2 [06:14]

• Automotive Names: Kids named after car models like Eagle Talon, Colt 45, and even references to vehicles like the Mitsubishi Eclipse.

  Notable Quote:
  “That's naming cars. That's like having a kid named Desoto or, you know, AMG Packard...” — Host 2 [05:53]

• Phonetically Altered Names: Names like Johozia and JHOSYA, which are unconventional spellings of traditional names.

  Notable Quote:
  “Jay Lee's sounds like something I take when my throat hurts. I need some...” — Host 2 [06:06]

These examples underscore the hosts' perspective that such names stray too far from traditional norms, leading to mockery and challenges for the children bearing them.

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Cultural Appropriation and Community Reactions

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around cultural appropriation, where naming practices traditionally rooted in the Black community are being adopted by white parents without understanding their origins or significance.

• Black Community's Mockery: The hosts mention that Black listeners often find these naming trends humorous and criticize them, indicating a shift in cultural dynamics.

  Notable Quote:
  “But now there's people name. That's naming cars. That's like having a kid named desoto or, you know, AMG Packard.” — Host 2 [05:53]

• Unique Spellings and Creativity: While some argue that unique spellings add creativity, the hosts contend that it often results in unnecessary complexity and mockery.

  Notable Quote:
  “You can't use the affect anymore, Brett. It's white people doing it.” — Host 2 [06:09]

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Impact on Children and Social Perception

The hosts express concern over the long-term effects these naming trends may have on children, including potential stigmatization and challenges in social settings.

• Legal and Social Implications: Names like Talon and Colt 45 are mentioned as being so unconventional that they can lead to legal issues or social ridicule.

  Notable Quote:
  “I think all kids named Talon should go to jail for a little while.” — Host 2 [06:18]

• Mispronunciations and Identity Issues: Instances where individuals struggle with pronouncing or spelling their names correctly, leading to frustration and a lack of personal identity.

  Notable Quote:
  “He introduced himself, I said, how you doing? My name's John. I'm Brady. And he goes, Joel.” — Host 2 [12:06]

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Cultural Consistency in Naming Practices

Contrasting the discussed trends, the hosts commend cultures that maintain consistent and traditional naming practices, such as the Mexican community, which predominantly uses names like Jose, Jesus, and Luis.

Notable Quote:
“Mexicans have stuck to their guns. You gotta hand it to them... You just don't.” — Host 2 [15:40]

This comparison emphasizes the hosts' preference for maintaining cultural and linguistic consistency in naming.

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with the hosts reiterating their stance against the proliferation of unconventional baby names, especially those adopted from other cultures without due consideration. They advocate for more traditional and easily recognizable names to ensure children are not burdened with unnecessary challenges stemming from their names.

Final Notable Quote:
“Come up with a regular name for your kids.” — Host 2 [15:40]

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Key Takeaways

• Cultural Shift: There's a noticeable shift towards unique and unconventional baby names, particularly among white parents, often borrowing from Black naming conventions.

• Critique of Creativity: While some view unique spellings and creative names as a form of self-expression, the hosts argue that it can lead to social and legal complications for the children.

• Cultural Appropriation: The adoption of names from other cultures without understanding their significance can lead to mockery and perpetuate stereotypes.

• Impact on Identity: Unconventional names can affect a child's identity and how they are perceived in society, potentially leading to challenges in personal and professional settings.

• Advocacy for Tradition: The hosts advocate for maintaining traditional naming practices to preserve cultural integrity and ensure the well-being of the children.

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This episode of Holmberg's Morning Sickness offers a spirited and critical examination of modern naming trends, highlighting the balance between individuality and cultural sensitivity.

Transcript

[Dick Toledo]

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[Unknown Host 1]

You're listening to the HMS podcast brought to you by MMP Guns, your trusted source for firearms and accessories. [e-mail] Cease and desist at once.

[Unknown Host 2]

The rest of homework's morning sickness. This is the Big Red Radio.

[Unknown Host 1]

This segment is brought to you guys by Action Ride Shop. Now if you're thinking about heading up north to hit the slopes for some skiing, some boarding, or if you're just gonna stay down here in the valley and do some mountain biking, Action Ride Shop is your to be. They got all the gear and all the knowledge you're gonna need, so check them out [e-mail] or better yet, just go visit them over there on Gilbert Road and Southern. It's Action Ride Shop.

[Unknown Host 2]

I gotta say though, you know all the complaining that we do about it's my generation's fault. I don't know when naming your kids something that used to be specifically just for black people to name their kids something spectacular and weird. Whitey, you've taken over with the dumbest names of all time. Didn't we used to laugh at that? Didn't even black people used to laug at that when they're Shaquanda and Robitussin and all the kids that were running around and and your L'Mangelo and there was a list every year of silly names in in sports that were going from high school to to college and they were hilarious. L'Angelo and his brother Orangelo, which was his parents named them lemon jello and orange Jello and just said Orangelo. Hilarious. Now it's whities, like affluent ones naming their kids ridiculously dumb names. I was tapioca but my dad ate that so we only had lemon and orange in the cupboard. This is my brother Orangelo and they were like twins I think too. And the one came out like what he is Lamangelo What? There's another one. He had to go through the cabinet. We got some orange jello. That's his name there. Orangelo. Oh man, white people gonna have a field day with it. And then the one guy that was named, his dad was in the military, so they named him sergeant or whatever. What was his name? Lieutenant or whatever is his first name. Because his dad wanted to name him after him. So he named him after his rank. Hilarious. But now you know you've done something and black people are laughing at this. You've done something. When the black community is going, man, white people naming their kids that is dumb. If black people are laughing at the names of your kids, you have, you have gone crazy. Lacutia. Lacutia. They arrest like six white kids named Talon yesterday. Talon? What kind of name of Talon? Lakusha. And I laugh a half hour. It's hilarious. But Talon, that's not a name. I named him after Talon, his brother Fang and his other brother Tusk. Kids, you're idiots. Name your kids. Normal stuff. My generation, we named them all. And all These kids are 17, 18, 19 years old. Which means they would have been right in the generation of my, you know, name it like Brett. And Brett and I would have 19, 20 year old kids right now. Mine would not be named Talon or no. Or you know, Penny Nail or Foot Hammer or something stupid. I don't know. They're dumb names. Skinny, Pedal, Foot Hammer, Muffler.

[Unknown Host 3]

I remember the guy out of Ohio and I think playing at Michigan. Mr. Simpson.

[Unknown Host 2]

Mr. Simpson. Yeah, they have Mr. Simpson. He came out the same year as that lieutenant guy or sergeant, I can't remember. But his dad named him that, which is hilarious. Mr. Simpson was Mr. Oh, there's some good ones this year. And it's a hodgepodge of white kids.

[Unknown Host 3]

And there's at least has embraced it because that's I want. This is my name. Kool Aid.

[Unknown Host 2]

Kool Aid is the best.

[Unknown Host 3]

And he'll go in the first round.

[Unknown Host 2]

I don't know if that's his nickname or not. No one says, I know he's got a first name.

[Unknown Host 3]

I think it is a nickname. But he's like, this is what I'm going by.

[Unknown Host 2]

That's not on like haha. Clinton Dix. That's his name.

[Unknown Host 3]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host 2]

I don't know. It's a crazy talent. Said, you want to hear something stupid, John? My sister in law named her two youngest Jay Lees and the boy Johoisa. Johozia. J H O S Y A that's Both creative and ghetto. Are they white? That's just a misspelled word. That second one. J H O S Y A can't be Joyce. Yeah, Jehosh. Yeah. And Jay Lee's sounds like something I take when my throat hurts. I need some. Jay Lee's got a sore throat. Talon. This guy says the parents were probably fans of the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Look alike. The Eagle Talon. Back in the 90s, I had a. The girl that wrote me the. The Brian Adams plagiarized letter crashed her car and bought an Eagle Talon. And it was hilariously bad car. Didn't am see, AMC was Eagle, right? AMC Eagle. And they made the Talon. That Talon was brutal. And now there's people name. That's naming cars. That's like having a kid named desoto or, you know, AMG Packard. The cruddy cars. He named your kid Eagle Talon.

[Unknown Host 1]

But go to any strip club and there's a Mercedes and a Porsche on stage.

[Unknown Host 2]

That's true. Now they're just bad, you know. Hey, cars, this is my son, Riviera. Oh, he's a sedan.

[Unknown Host 1]

That's my son, Coop deville.

[Unknown Host 3]

Yeah, the modernized.

[Unknown Host 2]

You can't. You can't use the affect anymore, Brett. It's white people doing it.

[Unknown Host 3]

Welcome to stage Rivian. Yeah, Rivian.

[Unknown Host 2]

The cilantro. It didn't last long. Thought it would be cooler than it is. Yeah, but naming your kids talent, I'm glad they're arrested. I think all people. I think all kids named Talon should go to jail for a little while. Especially if it's spelled cute. I think that's worse. I think when you name your kids normal and spell it dumb, it's even worse. Like, you have to be. Your kid has to be special and uni. Your kid's not unique. None of us are that unique. We're almost all the same. We're just a bunch of ants.

[Unknown Host 3]

Like, I've seen Terrence spell RR Y.

[Unknown Host 2]

A N. It's like, stop it. Stop putting Y's and X's and stuff. There was a girl in high school that was named Susie. And when Susie and the Banshees came out, she changed it to S O, U, I X or whatever it is.

[Unknown Host 3]

We had a S, O O.

[Unknown Host 2]

And that to me is more creative than the one who spelled it exactly the same as Susie and the Banshees. Yeah, because you're less creative that you said, hey, I could spell my name like that Creative person. And you just copied it. I used to ride around that Eagle Talon all the time. Just tell her you got to get a different car. This thing brutal. And I'm a Jeep guy. The same people were making my car. Well, actually, that was back. That was after Chrysler picked up Jeep. But the AMCs were talent. There's Kool Aid. McKinstry. Kool Aid. That's fantastic. That's like a white kid being named Mayonnaise. McKinstry. Kool Aid McKinstry. I want to look. Kool Aid's coming out in the draft. He played at Alabama. That guy's gonna be good.

[Unknown Host 3]

Ranch Johnson.

[Unknown Host 2]

All right. Ranch. Thousand Island. Kool Aid. And I gotta guess which one's black. You. And the other two are definitely white. So long. Holmberg's morning sickness. The game's getting easier, but way to go, Gilbert. Moms with your creative. My child's name is Talon, too. And you know, it would just harm them deeply if the Talon mom that they were talking to spelled theirs T, A, L, Y, N, too. You spelled it the same. That means my angel's not special. Well, the two Talons going to jail are special. And trust me, they're gonna get treated real special in the can and in jail. This is my son credit. This is my daughter, Carlotta Sales. The easy credit. The donkey. They name it up. We don't name it after the lone arranger. Just stop it. Just name your kids normal stuff. That's. I said John when I lived in Utah. It was all over the place. Those Mormon people love normal names spelled weird. That is so true. It's a white thing to take a normal name and add a letter number, an X or a Y. They can't get enough of it, and they think they're being creative or unique, and it just makes your kid a douchebag.

[Unknown Host 1]

Does Kirby go to school at a bunch of those?

[Unknown Host 3]

Oh, yeah, There's a few. Yep.

[Unknown Host 2]

Oh, she's got Braden, Hayden, Cadence, and Talons in there. Ugh. I mean, just stop. Just. There's certain ways to do things. Certain ways not to. You being a douchebag with the spelling of a normal name is not adding creativity to your son. It makes him unique. Well, there's four of them in there. How unique is it when four people have the same stupid name spelled with x's and schwas? I want my son to have an umlaut. No one has an umlaut. Great. You just make it harder to write. Here's my son, Purple Drank. My God. In my day, that kid was definitely going to be black. But look at him. He's white as can be. Hello, Purple drank. Call me P.D. i will not.

[Unknown Host 1]

Here's my son. Colt 45.

[Unknown Host 2]

Right again. This is a Gilbert kid named Colt 45. What's this world coming to? Oh, that's a guy.

[Unknown Host 3]

Have you seen 720 johnson run credit score.

[Unknown Host 2]

It says that it cleared up the email that Edgar sent earlier of Jaj. And the boy is J. Josiah. That's just annoying. Or just people I don't want to know. Yeah, I don't know.

[Unknown Host 3]

I remember in high school, it was the coolest name ever.

[Unknown Host 2]

We.

[Unknown Host 3]

He's running back out of a Cincinnati molar, which was a pretty good high school. We played him in the state finals. Hiawatha Francisco.

[Unknown Host 2]

Yeah, that's pretty. It was.

[Unknown Host 3]

Done have 300 yards.

[Unknown Host 2]

Yeah. You're going to win a lot of games with Hiawatha.

[Unknown Host 3]

And then his brother Dwan. I remember Notre Dame.

[Unknown Host 2]

The dopiest name in my high school. And you might have known him. Ah, maybe not. Was a kid named Amwa. And when I kept telling my dad, like, my friend Amwa's coming over. And he goes, armwa. I'm like, no, Armwa. Armwa. Like, he refused to say anything. But the chest of drawers.

[Unknown Host 1]

The black dude.

[Unknown Host 2]

Yeah. And then when my dad saw, I remember him going, oh, okay. He's named after a chest of drawers. I'm like, it's not even spelled the same. I know. It's Armoire. I'm like, no, it's Armoire. We call him Ami. Armoire. No, dad, it's not.

[Unknown Host 3]

Then you have the two dumb whities like you and I. The guy's name is very simple, but we're calling him Cha the whole time.

[Unknown Host 2]

But that's not fair because that was his accent. Brady and I met a Chinese national and golfed with him once. And when he introduced himself, I said, how you doing? My name's John. I'm Brady. And he goes, joel. We're like, all right, Cha. No, because we just assumed that was a Chinese name. So for 17 holes, we're like, great shot, Cha. This guy smoked Marlboros like. Like a forest fire.

[Unknown Host 3]

American cigarette.

[Unknown Host 2]

Yeah, it's blue jean. American cigarette. Go. And then he hit a ball and he. Pretty good. Good shot. Ch. Nice putt. Ch. And then, like, 17th hole. He just rolls over to us. Go. The name is a Joe.

[Unknown Host 3]

On his bag.

[Unknown Host 2]

Oh, yeah, sorry about that.

[Unknown Host 3]

We had six or seven songs that.

[Unknown Host 2]

Were singing during the round and on. In honor of Gene Simmons being with us yesterday, we. For about a half a round. Ch, I hear you calling. Can't come home Right now, we were singing all sorts of songs for him, thinking what a silly name ch is. But it turned out his name was Joe. That was his fault for not being. You know, diction's important when you've got an accent. And when people start saying, hey, cha. No, no, no, no, no, no. He's a ch. I know. That's what I've been saying the whole time. Chaos. Ju. Okay, I'm hearing what you're saying here. You're laying it down, and I'm spitting it out. Oh, no, no, no. Like a cowboy. America. Keep saying it.

[Unknown Host 3]

And you go through it a little bit every now and then, there's people you don't correct, or they say my name. Brody or Brody.

[Unknown Host 2]

Grady.

[Unknown Host 3]

Grady.

[Unknown Host 2]

You get Grady.

[Unknown Host 3]

Yeah. Homegren. And most of the time, you never correct.

[Unknown Host 2]

I always say close enough. Yeah. And nobody really knows. I don't care, because my. If you can't.

[Unknown Host 3]

Brett Brent.

[Unknown Host 2]

I get not getting my last name right. It's got consonants all over. John. You can't screw that one. I could if you said Don. I'm like, no, John or Sean. A lot of times people think I say my name's Sean. It's John. So we had a girl in high school named Talon. Also, she was a ho. We would say she was a talented ho because she spelled her name with two L's. Talented. I'm gonna name my kid after a Subaru Baja. Yeah, well, if Eagle Talons get in play, says from a black listener. You are not lying about black. Black names. Yeah, well, we took it from you. We. Cultural appropriation. We've started to name our kids dumb stuff, too, like Armoire, but my dad refused to say that was anything but Armoire. Armoire. Like, no. What's his brother's name? Foyer. Stop it. His cousin, Coffee Table. He had a kid named Footstool running around that house. I'm sure he's not the only one in the house. Oh, no. This one says my bought. My daughter was born in 2011. We named her Reagan. R, A, E, G, A, N. With that spelling to make her a little unique. We have met about a dozen Reagan since she was born, and they were also spelled that way. Also, we thought her name was a little different, but it was actually the 12th most common name for girls that year. Yeah, you get the idea from somewhere. And then sometimes it's wildfire, and sometimes it's stupid. Well, actually, all times it's stupid. This comes from a guy named John. Come up with a regular name for your kids. Mexicans have stuck to their guns. You gotta hand it to them. It's all Jesus, Jose. They don't. Luis. They don't deviate too much. You don't need a whole lot of Mexican kids, name whatever Mexican word is for talent. You just don't. No, we're not. It's Luis. It's Luis. It's. Sometimes they go off the rails a little bit.

[Unknown Host 3]

Amy.

[Unknown Host 2]

You think Amy is a good Mexican?

[Unknown Host 3]

No. Jamie.

[Unknown Host 2]

Oh, Jaime. Yeah. For the most part, you'll get a Guillermo now and again, but for the most part, Jose, Jesus. And then Chris will pop up. Chris. Estoban. They're not throwing out, you know, hubcap or, you know, tire iron, things they're familiar with.

[Unknown Host 3]

Got Lucio.

[Unknown Host 2]

Yeah. I mean, I'm surprised, to be honest, that if the. If this whole naming your kid something unique hasn't snuck into the Mexican culture that soon I'll meet a Ravencrest. Because, you know, name it after stuff they love. Talon Kid's named after all. Bird Foot, Arizona's most powerful rock radio station. It's out of control now, 88.