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ALPHABET SOUP

Sometimes, one comes across names which seem like they consist of scrabble tiles drawn out of a bag at random.  There have been a number of explanations as to why these names have so recently become popular, but there are certain aspects in common:

• They are often held by African-Americans, although this is not always true;
• They are generally associated with younger parents with a lower education and economic status (again, not always true);
• Certain sounds (in a variety of spellings) are more frequent, such as -sh-, -i- (rhyming with 'eye'), -ontae-, -avius and -avian (in boys), -isha and -ika (for girls), and more.  Popular beginnings are Ja-, Sha-, She-, Ken-, Ta- and La-.  The sounds of k and j are perennial favorites, often currently presented as q and zh.
• There may well be a recognizable 'parent' name, ie, a name which can be recognized as the base for an alphabet soup name.  An example for this is Terryondray Keithon.  The names Terry, Andre and Keith are present, but changed to the point that they can no longer be seen as simply a spelling variation of the parent names.

The names have become increasingly extravagant over time.  There has been a long tradition of creating names - names such as Lalinda existed before the turn of the last century, and slave records show the same pattern even earlier.  Many were based on language patterns brought over from western Africa.  It was only in the last part of the twentieth century that created names became widely popular, and evolved from names like LaTasha and Taisha into the tongue-twisting and phonics-based wonders like J'aZz'A'LyNn'Sey, which is also a nice illustration of the use of punctuation marks and random capital letters.