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Help[Opinions] Re: Under-representation of African names
in reply to a message by Dorchadas
I agree with the points made in this response 100%. It articulates what I wanted to say better than I ever could.
I also agree that the OP was too aggressive, but I’m not sure we need to meet that aggression with quite so much of our own.
Hopefully this will end up opening the door for a calm, rational discussion on the representation of non-Euro-centric names on this site. It’s a very well-researched, well-maintained and trusted source and it would be the ideal place for an expanded database of African names if such a thing were feasible. I wouldn’t mind hearing from the powers that be about why it hasn’t happened so far.
I also agree that the OP was too aggressive, but I’m not sure we need to meet that aggression with quite so much of our own.
Hopefully this will end up opening the door for a calm, rational discussion on the representation of non-Euro-centric names on this site. It’s a very well-researched, well-maintained and trusted source and it would be the ideal place for an expanded database of African names if such a thing were feasible. I wouldn’t mind hearing from the powers that be about why it hasn’t happened so far.
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Apart from all the points that Dorchadas made so very cogently, I suspect it's a matter of priorities. Making lists and doing statistical things for no urgent and/or profitable reason is a very First World thing to do. South Africa is pretty sophisticated in many ways, but we don't make births, marriages and deaths statistics available annually, let along lists of names in use! And in large parts of the continent, people and governments and bureaucracies are focused on survival, and anything that doesn't actually do that will probably not get done.
I have been able to send Mike C a couple of lists of Top Ten Names in the Last Year, which did come from the Department of Home Affairs and should be reliable (the Dept claims to be working on being more informative; which would be nice. We'll see.) but are just that - lists. With no indication of which language the names are used in, let alone what they mean. And if we can't do a decent job, I don't hold out much hope for, let's say, South Sudan, though I'd love to be proved wrong.
I have been able to send Mike C a couple of lists of Top Ten Names in the Last Year, which did come from the Department of Home Affairs and should be reliable (the Dept claims to be working on being more informative; which would be nice. We'll see.) but are just that - lists. With no indication of which language the names are used in, let alone what they mean. And if we can't do a decent job, I don't hold out much hope for, let's say, South Sudan, though I'd love to be proved wrong.
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