Why Do People Use Names?

Naming and Identity can shape a good portion of the person’s life. People are forever know by the name they are given and it can cause assumptions based on the name that was given to them. A way names can be used constructively is giving someone a name that doesn’t stand out too much but carries a certain sense of identity with it. Names like John, Anna, Anthony, Alexis, and Catherine all carry an image with them but they don’t stand out to the point of absurdity. A wrong way of using names would be to use something like Shithead (shi-thead) or North West. These names, while carrying a sense of identity, will open up people to not only ridicule through their school life but will make it hard for them in the future by causing employment issues from employers looking at their name and drawing a different image of who that person is. Names can seriously cripple or help someone depending on how it’s used.

Affiliation is a good way to connect with a person or with a group of people.

Curtailing the way you speak to someone to sound like them or the group can allow you to be a part of the ingroup but it must be done so carefully. Converging your speech to a black group and using the same words and phrases as they do before being a part of that ingroup can lead to disastrous consequences. They could range from your standing with them souring a little to them chasing you down the street in anger. That being said, the best way to converge your speech with someone would be to wait for the group to consider you one of their own. Using the black group again as an example if you wait to until they are consider you in the group and trust you can slowly curtail your speech to

theirs.
Relationships can be made or broke as easily by the way you say your words. Power and Politeness will shape the way someone thinks of you based on what they want out of a person. If someone wants someone in control and powerful with their speech it would be wise to change to a more powerful speech pattern and vice versa for more polite people. A good way to understand what pattern of speech needs to be is to look at the way the person is speaking and see what they want back. If your boss comes up to you and says “Excuse me Jimmy, I understand you are busy but it would be great if you could have the reports done by end of the day.” responding with something like “I understand sir, I will get them done right away and have them on your desk by the end of the day, okay?” is the best way to respond with that. If you responded with something like “Ok, I will work on them and I will swing by the end of the day to give them to you.” you might sound more powerful ultimately you undercut the boss and made him seem weak with the way you spoke to him.

Sexism and racism are still alive to this day. It’s alive through actions, inactions, and the words and phrases we use. Different words and phrases can, whether you meant to or not, offend or belittle someone. For example, using unmarried mother carries a stigma with it that belittles the woman for being single with a child. A way to correct that is just calling the woman a mother or just a single parent removing the gender word from the sentence. Racism is not much different to sexism but deals with a bigger scope of people. Racist language can be as blatant as saying your race is better than others or as subtle as adding unnecessary modifiers. Adding modifiers like black preacher, mexican worker, etc. Using these modifiers can have negative connotations to the person they are talking about. There are ways to change that and the biggest one that could be done is just removing the unnecessary modifiers from people.