on weird names

there is some discussion in my tumblr dash about making fun of weird names white parents give their children. so here's my thoughts on this

because of my job, I often see the names of a wide selection of people. Unsurprisingly, this sometimes means i see names that are outside the ordinary for my cultural context (and my co-workers' cultural context, which is approximately the same)

you know what's the number one source of weird names? immigrants. Because Argentina is mostly surrounded by countries that speak the same language, Brazil being the exception, many immigrants have names that are generally 'familiar', but because it's a different country, which names are considered popular or aesthetically pleasant is different (because it turns out that's an entirely subjective thing and your culture affects that!). So you see names you know but would never think of giving your child.

so, y'know. my immediate association with someone making fun of weird names is xenophobia.

You might say that's entirely irrelevant to the conversation about white people in America. And it kind of is, but I wanted to establish what my gut reaction is, before expanding on my real endorsed rejection on making fun of weird names, which is:

Those kids with the unusual names? they have internet access, or will soon. Some of them will eventually come across your post making fun of their names, and no matter how much you try to focus on the parents' choices,it turns out hearing your name is weird and bad still hurts. You will ruin some kid's day for no reason other than, I don't know, being funny on the internet I guess. Good fucking job.

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every time i click a footnote on a website and it turns out to work via some javascript bullshit rather than good old fashioned html (and therefore using the 'back' button doesn't take me back to where i was on the page before clicking the footnote) i die a little inside

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hmmm. i was fairly confident that Professor Haywire was canonically an Aleph native (explaining why the main universe in the serial is Earth B and not Earth A), but the not only can't I find a reference to that in the wiki, but apparently WoG is that part of Haywire's power is that three versions of him existed in different universes and had some sort of telepathic connection. so presumably there's at least three universes where there was a native Professor Haywire, powers and all, and it's never specified which they are. and priors definitely favour Bet as one of them, given it's the universe with the most capes.

I mean I stand by my inference based on the information available in canon but since I have not been able to find whatever other hint I thought there was and it's entirely possible it never existed, I was more confident than warranted.

Edit: while I'm talking about WoG stuff, apparently wildbow has stated that Wards mostly have half-day classes and their parents do not necessarily know they are Wards. this works under cover of doing some kind of internship stuff with local government or businesses. this is not public knowledge, i think (in the link WB talks about how tattletale did not expect as many wards at the bank as there were, because she did not know that most of them weren't even in school)

I have not yet read a fic with a Wards PoV that gets this 'right'. Not that I blame them, WoG is not canon and nobody has the time to keep up with every last thing wildbow has ever said, just find it curious which things happen to percolate through to the official fanon and which don't.