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Dalton Conley, a sociologist specializing in parenthood, has published an op-ed on Vogue.com's "Platforms" series defending Kanye and Kim Kardashian's choice of baby name, North West. His reasoning? They're just being black and famous. We're not being glib. That's what he wrote.
The famous argument stems from a long line of odd names that denote status, starting with Moon Unit Zappa, daughter of Gail and Frank Zappa, in 1967 to Apple Paltrow of the Gwyneth clan.
The second argument revolves around the famously non-traditional names in America's black communities: He writes:
I think the more interesting sociological phenomenon that North West embodies (as the daughter of a black man) is the rise of unique black names. Around the same time celebrities started thinking up names that otherwise served as nouns, verbs or adjectives, African Americans began to abandoned longstanding naming patterns. Until the civil rights movement, a typical black name might have been Franklin or Florence. But then black power happened. Blacks wanted to assert their individuality and break ties from the dominant society, so the proportion of unique names—i.e. that appear in birth records for that year only once—shot up.
All in all, Conley isn't worried about Kimye's kid being gender confused, ridiculed relentlessly in the future, or, obviously, disadvantaged, because in the end names aren't a big deal. He should know; He experiments on his own kids. They're named E (oldest, girl) and Yo Xing Heyno Augustus Eisner Alexander Weiser Knuckles (boy), which he specifies, maybe even seriously, that it's sung to the tune of "John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmitt."
So, in keeping with the rumor that Anna Wintour signed off on the name, is this a defense from the commander and chief? It would really help if she signed A.W. on all her personally held beliefs.
· A Girl Named North? Why Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's Baby Name Isn't That Unusual [Vogue.com]
· If You Miss Kanye's Twitter, Enjoy These 10 Quotes From W [Racked]
· 5 of the Best North West Jokes on the Internet Today [Racked]