I'm sure by now you have heard about, read about or maybe even seen the interview with Katie Hopkins on This Morning on Wednesday this week. I was actually watching the show when it aired, and was totally astounded by the attitude of Katie. I chatted about it with family afterwards, but since then it seems to have gone viral, and every journalist and blogger from here to Timbuktu has something to say about it. So I may as well throw in my two pence.
If you haven't seen the interview yet, I definitely recommend you check it out here.
The premise of the interview, and the question asked to viewers was "Should you judge a person by their name". Katie has some pretty strong views on this as you may have realised by now. She believes that it IS acceptable to judge a person - a child to be specific - by their name. Not only does she think it's ok, she actively does judge children by their name, and dictates to her own family whether or not they can associate with people based on their name.
She believes that children who have, what she classes as, working class names are not suitable for her children to have as friends. Kids such as Tyler, Charmaime, Chantelle or Chardonnay are not welcome additions to her children's circle of friends, and she basically said that children with these types of names are trouble makers who will amount to nothing.
The counter argument was that it's pretty horrific to judges child on name they didn't even choose, and that many people with so-called 'working class' names go on to be Olympians, journalists and famous musicians.
While I think most people (including 91% of This Morning viewers) would agree that you SHOULDN'T judge a person by their name, I also think most people might be fibbing if they said they had NEVER judged a person by their name. However, I imagine that, in opposition to Katie, most of us are guilty of judging at the other end of the scale. If you met a person called Hugo or Augustus can you honestly say you wouldn't form a preconception about them and their lifestyle? We SHOULDN'T.......but most of us DO. However, to actively judge children based solely on their names is pretty insane, in my opinion.
Having recently been charged with the awesome task of naming a tiny human, I can honestly say it is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Simon and I spent hours mulling over baby names and luckily Isabelle was chosen quickly, and easily agreed upon (it took us until week 38 of pregnancy to choose a name for a boy...that we never even needed!). There were a few important things to me when choosing a name, which all stem from my own name. When I was at primary school, there were 2 other Sarah's in my class, and I always hated that Sarah doesn't shorten to anything. So it was very important to me that my baby would have a name that isn't overly popular. While Isabelle is high on the name list in England and Wales, it doesn't make the top 100 in Northern Ireland, and there are lots of nickname possibilities to explore. But at the end of the day, it was most important that both Simon and I loved a name, even if it did turn out to be the #1 name.
I would be devastated to think that people would judge us, or Isabelle herself, solely on her name. I'm pretty sure the mothers of any Tyler, Charmaine, Chantelle or Chardonnay out there also spent a great deal of time choosing their beautiful baby's name, and are equally devastated - and probably outraged - at Katie Hopkins views.
Then again, should we really be bothered by the views of a woman who said she hates 'geographic names'........only to have the silver haired fox point out her child is called India?!
Having recently been charged with the awesome task of naming a tiny human, I can honestly say it is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Simon and I spent hours mulling over baby names and luckily Isabelle was chosen quickly, and easily agreed upon (it took us until week 38 of pregnancy to choose a name for a boy...that we never even needed!). There were a few important things to me when choosing a name, which all stem from my own name. When I was at primary school, there were 2 other Sarah's in my class, and I always hated that Sarah doesn't shorten to anything. So it was very important to me that my baby would have a name that isn't overly popular. While Isabelle is high on the name list in England and Wales, it doesn't make the top 100 in Northern Ireland, and there are lots of nickname possibilities to explore. But at the end of the day, it was most important that both Simon and I loved a name, even if it did turn out to be the #1 name.
I would be devastated to think that people would judge us, or Isabelle herself, solely on her name. I'm pretty sure the mothers of any Tyler, Charmaine, Chantelle or Chardonnay out there also spent a great deal of time choosing their beautiful baby's name, and are equally devastated - and probably outraged - at Katie Hopkins views.
Then again, should we really be bothered by the views of a woman who said she hates 'geographic names'........only to have the silver haired fox point out her child is called India?!
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