Baby names can be a bone of contention or a unifying factor in families.
My own first name is from my Grandmother who got it from her Grandmother who got it from hers going back to the early 1600s when a French fur trapper married the first Kanien’kéha:ka Haudenosaunee woman in my maternal line.
Quick genealogy tip: if you’re of French descent in northern North America—the French in the southern regions and the Caribbean had a different focus—and your ancestors arrived before the Industrial Revolution and aren’t Acadian, the likelihood of being part Indigenous is high.
Why?
The French settlers from the northern region and pre-Industrial Revolution era largely came to participate in the fur trade as trappers, buyers and exporters and were almost exclusively unmarried French Catholic men. When these men married, they either returned to France to find a wife and remained there to start families or they married North American Indigenous women—as did their sons and their sons’ sons.
If North American Catholic church records show the bride was baptized with a Saint’s name and married on the same day as her baptism, it’s almost guaranteed she was Indigenous. And that’s how my name came to be in our family.
It’s not a name of Indigenous origin, but the women who had the name all were. In our family, my Germanic first name is a tie to our Indigenous heritage.
For Indigenous people’s who were subjected to settler colonialism, maintaining ties to their ancestry holds challenges created by the governments in places like the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Indigenous languages and culture were outlawed until far more recently than most people realize and Indigenous children were taken to boarding schools—sometimes by force—to be assimilated into White culture.
The result was several “lost” generations with little connection to their cultural heritage.
A mother who wants her son to have ties to his father’s culture through his name turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback.
MaterialBorn1116 asked:
“AITA for kicking my cousin out over a Reddit post?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I(28, female) and my husband (29, male) hosted my cousin (23, female) at our place since last summer because she wanted to find a job in our city and we were the only ones she knew. We aren’t close, but my parents begged me to let her stay.”
“My husband has very little native Australian blood, he doesn’t know the language or culture, but we did name our newborn after his grandfather. Just our son’s middle name—John Djarrtjuntjun Harrison (fake first and last names).”
“Well five months after our beautiful boy’s birth, I met up with an old colleague who showed me a screenshot of my boy’s name on a subReddit specifically to make fun of uncommon or misspelled names.”
“Though the post has been deleted, my colleague screenshot it because she thought it sounded familiar.”
“In the comments she remarked the OP had also made snide comments about my child’s name. With people cheering her on.”
“We dug a little further and I could confirm it was my cousin’s profile. From her interests to her pictures posted.”
“Me and my husband confronted her about it and she said the majority agreed with her that it was a stupid and horrendous name. She also said it didn’t matter that it was a cultural name, since my husband can’t speak the language and isn’t even involved in the culture.”
“My husband was livid and we decided to kick her out.”
“She has since blasted us on Facebook and family group chat about kicking her out in a foreign city since she was jobless and we are setting our son up for failure with a name like that.”
“She also said she was doing us a favour by showing us how horrible of a name it was. However, I don’t see that as the case as it was posted almost a year ago and she seemed to have no intention to reveal her thoughts to us otherwise.”
“So I would like to know, am I really the a**hole?”
The OP later added:
“I saw their post on the other subReddit. Let me clarify the fake names in my post were John and Harrison because they’re very basic White names in Australia.“
“Djarrtjuntjun is our son’s actual middle name. There’s actually quite a few of them here in my city.”
“Mandawuy Djarrtjuntjun Yunupingu is a famous person with that same exact middle name for reference purposes.”
“The reason why my husband is very distanced from his Indigenous culture—would you guys like to take a guess what colonialism did to Australia’s Aboriginals?”
“Even though my husband isn’t connected to his culture, he is recognised. His name is in the local community center for Aboriginal descent and we get invited for Aboriginal festivals.”
“He also has an Aboriginal middle name which he hardly uses professionally, but he never had a problem with it being mocked.”
The OP summed up their situation.
“I might be the a**hole for kicking my cousin out over a Reddit that may be right. I might be letting my anger overtake my decisions.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
“NTA. Your cousin abused your hospitality by making fun of your son’s middle name. There is no excuse for this.”
“She effed around and found out the consequences. And she never did plan on telling you about the post – she was just looking for likes and followers for her profile.” ~ Comfortable-Sea-2454
“Honesty, OP should respond to her Facebook post with how they kicked her out because she is a racist and mocking aboriginal culture.” ~ Wise-ish_Owl
“Did she not know why many Aboriginal Australians don’t know their languages? Like, she’s young enough to have been educated in school on the stolen generation, FFS. NTA.” ~ echidnaberry87
“We destroyed more languages than most regions have ever spoken.” ~ BlackJesus1001
“I wasn’t even born in Australia, I’m White enough to be used as an emergency beacon and even I know about the stolen generation. Cousin was way out of line, NTA.” ~ QuestionableIdeas
“NTA and that subReddit is also not for mocking meaningful middle names with cultural background/specifications.” ~ Danube_Kitty
“Wanted to mention that. That subReddit is for misspellings and invented names, cultural names are fine as long as they’re written the way they are culturally/traditionally written.” ~ Ezra_lurking
“Unfortunately, you can find racists all over the place. NTA.” ~ LonelyMenace101
“Please respond to her Facebook post in detail by emphasising how racist she is with the context of the Aboriginals. And like you said, if she was really concerned, she should have gone to you rather than looking for karma on Reddit. Then send her this post so that she knows how she FAFOed.” ~ PsychologicalSense53
“NTA. I think I can understand your husband. I’m 50% Native American in the United States and lived on two different reservations.”
“However, I know very very little of my culture because my dad’s side I didn’t get the chance due to custody issues and favoritism from certain family members.”
“My mom’s side, her and my grandma didn’t want to share more. So from my grandma the only things I got from her is my native name, learning to bead barely, and an identity crisis in my early teens.”
“I wonder what your cousin would’ve thought of me then? Because I’m literally enrolled and received benefits, but like I said, I know so little of my traditions.”
“If your husband wants to—and I always encourage other natives—check into your local area for support groups. I found out recently there’s a group for my tribe to learn our culture.”
“I plan to be involved once my little girl gets older so we can attend together. It’s never too late to learn and totally okay in wanting to learn.”
“I almost gave my baby girl part of my native name—it’s Mahto (maa-toe) means bear but my full native name is Mahto Cinca (chin-cha) which is bear child.”
“I think it’s awesome you are trying to preserve the culture and honoring his grandfather at the same time.” ~ TheAnnMain
“Putting aside being incredibly rude and your cousin biting the hand that feeds her, I think your family is missing a key point here. Your cousin is racist.”
“She is making fun of a name from your husband’s culture because it’s ‘different’. That is so fricked up. It doesn’t matter your husband doesn’t have more cultural connections especially considering why.”
“My great grandmother was Lakota Sioux. My great grandfather was Holland Dutch and got disowned for marrying her.”
“I find her & my great grandfather’s stories cool and interesting, but I know very little about Lakota Sioux culture. She didn’t know much because she was taken from her family by missionaries as a child.”
“That doesn’t diminish fact that this is her/my culture; it was just stolen from us. NTA, obviously.” ~ KimB-booksncats-11
“NTA. Sorry about all the family backlash you’re getting OP. People outside of Australia just don’t understand this is a totally different situation to ‘my great great great grandpa was from Ireland so I’m Irish even though I know nothing about Ireland or Irish culture’.”
“Because of the White Australia policy and the stolen generations, you don’t have to be 100% or even 50% blak to be able to connect with community and your Aboriginality. I hope you can ignore all those people, because they have literally no idea what they’re on about.”
“And for what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone is going to make fun of your son’s name. They’ll automatically recognise it as an Aboriginal name because you’re in Australia.”
“You were already perfectly entitled to use the name you did, but if you’re being invited to an Aboriginal festival by Aboriginal people, that’s even more of a confirmation. I’d say your husband is also entitled to connect with his mob and learn more about his culture—especially so since he had a relationship with his grandfather.”
“They would understand that some people only connect with their identity later in life!” ~ ParmyNotParma
“NTA. Second names are frequently ones that have special meaning to the family, but can be unusual because they are seldom used or commonly known.”
“You could be friends with someone for years without knowing their middle name. Your son’s name will likely give him a special pride in his heritage.” ~ Maximum-Swan-1009
“NTA. Tell her there is this guy who is actually only about 1/4-1/8 Hawaiian from his dad’s side with a really weird Hawaiian first name professionals said would ruin his chances at a career. His name is Keanu and everybody knows his name, but no one mocks it.” ~ KnightofForestsWild
Indigenous names aren’t jokes to be mocked.
The fact OP’s cousin chose to is the reason that cousin is now facing consequences.
FAFO, indeed.