#the absurd and ridiculously long names of the english elite class mayhaps?

[radlymona]

the whole "jk rowling's names for characters are racist stereotypes" drives me CRAZY because it's the same crowd of people who claim to care about US-centrism and colonialism erasing native cultures, yet when a person part of a racial minority doesn't live in the US and therefore their parents didn't name them Joe or Sarah they freak tf out because those are the only minorities they talk to and the only time they choose to actually engage with anything non-white it's to complain about racist caricatures so their only exposure to non-US culture is racism and they start to associate any non-white non-US names as racist I lose my mind a bit more each time

Absolutely agreed about the point of associating any non-white, non-US name as racist. Like these are just common names from where we come from. In My Big Fat Greek Wedding there's a whole gag about about how Toula has like 80% of male relatives named Nick. And Greek people love this joke, because it's true! And we love to laugh about the endless amounts of toulas, roulas, and soulas which sound ridiculous to english-speakers but as just normal parts of a language that loves to use diminutives. The nicknames we use for each other at home would sound babyish to most english speakers, but are perfectly acceptable among your friends and family.

And like english-speakers being so racist against "ethnic names" (for a lack of a better term) is a reason why so many immigrants drop their perfectly common and acceptable names in their home country/culture and use either an anglicised version or just a completely different english name for convenience. Like yeah you're probably a lot less likely to come across an Italian named Luigi now than say Daniel or some other acceptable male name. Because people stopped naming their kids that are considered funny/stereotypical by english speakers. Almost as if racism leads to cultural assimilation?

But back to JKR. What's more progressive? An awkward attempt at cultural inclusion written at a time in which name databases like nameberry didn't exist (while living in a 90% white country), or like outright ignoring their cultural identity and naming an Indian character "Jane" or smth.