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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on What's In A Name? - Less Wrong
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Comments (132)
That's it, I'm naming my first child Utility.
A more useful application of this might be to assign people temporary names during hypothetical role playing to influence how they behave or what lessons they take away. I see this as a subtler version of what happened in the Stanford prison experiment. It would certainly reinforce the process: making someone a guard is one thing, what if they were given the a badge labeled "Lt. Punisher"?
Okay... just going by the sound of the syllables, it doesn't sound that bad... but I really don't know what that would do to the kid's life, y'know what I'm saying?
I once met a kid named Vanyel. I asked him if he was named after Vanyel Ashkevron. He said "Yes". "Cool," I said, and I meant it, but I was also thinking "What the hell were his parents thinking, naming him after the most famous gay character in all of fantasy?" It's not that it's a bad name for an adult to take for themselves, but it's not really the sort of decision you should make for a child.
Well, going by the study, I guess Utility will end up working for a power company and maybe living in Utah. Vanyel will end up in some job where he drives a van in Vermont.
Or rather, they'll have a slightly increased chance of doing so.
Realistically, people will think Vanyel is a foreign name. Same for Utility, until they see it written out.
EDIT: missing word
My first instinct was to agree with you. My second instinct was to think, "Does that mean I should not name my child after a straight character in fantasy, either?"
And if I should not, that rules out... just about every name that comes from the Bible, doesn't it? ;)
It probably wouldn't rule out David.
The only Biblical name I had in mind was Ruth. Which, really, would be after a great aunt of mine, but the name comes from a Biblical character perhaps best known for following her mother-in-law around after being widowed. I think "maybe you'll be gay" is probably a less damaging message than "maybe you'll be straight, you'll get married, your husband will die, and then you'll live with your mother-in-law in a foreign country".
I do plan to name a first daughter after a fictional character (not a biblical one; Ruth is the prospective middle name of a second daughter) and I picked one with a mellifluous name, who displays various positive character traits throughout the four-book series in which she appears. However, the fact remains that I'm planning to name a kid after a fantasy princess who gets married in her teens to a king she's known for a very short time and lives happily ever after save some troubles with evil wizards and who then goes on to raise her son alone for sixteen years on account of some trouble with the evil wizards. Is this inauspicious? Does it matter?
There's a kid who will never worry about coming out to his parents, should it be necessary.
Seconding Alicorn. I haven't read the books, but one would imagine that there's more to this character than simply his being gay.
Sure. But it's a central plot point of his stories, nonetheless.
I think that if I would object to someone naming their daughter Utility, then it's fair enough to worry about someone naming their son Vanyel. Or Singularity Smith or Humanist Hugh. Names shouldn't mark children for their parents' politics. Change your own name if you want to make a statement like that.
And if they just really liked Vanyel the character... I'm sorry, but you've got to be realistic about what shows up on Google.
Invalid analogy. The name under discussion is Vanyel, not Downwithheteronormativity or Queer Quentin.
So one should not name one's child Elton, then, as a gay character shows up prominently in the search results?
Is being okay with homosexuality a matter of politics?
Sadly, it is now. Maybe in a hundred years, Eliezer will approve of Vanyel's name for children born at that time? Maybe if he'd lived a hundred years ago he'd have criticized people for naming children after characters of other races, or after characters who associated as equals with other races?
I'll say it again: It's not the job of parents to make that choice for children. If you want to grow up and then change your name, great! (We could use with a tradition of that anyway, so that people have a chance to outrun all the Internet posts they made before they were 21 years old.) But the job of parents choosing a name for their child is first and foremost to be concerned strictly about their children, as they will be as children and then as adults. Candy is a great name for a 4-year-old daughter, not so great for a future Board member of a Fortune 500 company. I'm glad my own parents didn't actually name me Luke Skywalker Yudkowsky, for example, or Hen3ry or any of the other cute names they considered. Or even Hari Seldon Yudkowsky - it probably wouldn't be a help to me in my life.
Children and their names shouldn't be pawns in that sort of game - even with the best possible motives and fighting the best possible battles.
"Luke S. Yudkowsky" doesn't seem particularly bizarre. Isn't it kind of traditional for people to be embarrassed about their middle name anyway? The others do have problems, though.
What choice? You don't seem to be advocating calling children "eldest son" or "second daughter" until they reach the age of majority and accept a name that reflects their adult personalities, so I don't think you mean that parents should not name their children. And every name carries with it a history and a connotation and a sound - even made-up collections of pretty syllables carry the "my parents made up my name, isn't that wacky" connotation. Which ones pass your threshold of not having the wrong connotation or history or sound? It can't be avoided entirely; should we, in your opinion, restrict ourselves to names that are X years old or have X existing popularity or that X% of randomly quizzed people think is a pretty normal name?
Indeed - I'm puzzled about what choice Eliezer meant. Eliezer seems to be advocating not naming your child anything that might be in any way weird, which causes me extreme cognitive dissonance when I consider that he thinks 'Eliezer' is okay.
I'm not sure avoiding mere weirdness is the point, the point is to avoid any name with associations or permutations that would make one's child easier to tease during childhood, or be taken less seriously during adulthood (e.g. "Candy"), or experience a higher risk of any other negative outcome.
As someone who has experienced childhood bullying, I'm glad that my name didn't give the bullies any additional ammo. If the bully is trying hard enough, they can make fun of just about any name, but some names are easier to make fun of than others.
The child having a positive outcome in the world (meaning the real world of the present, not the world that should be) is more important than parents' exercising their creativity, self-expression, or statement-making, political or otherwise. A child is not a vanity plate.
If I ever have a daughter, I want to name her Flonne.
Has it occurred to you that a daughter only spends a certain number of years being cute, and then wants to grow up and possibly be President?
I'm pretty sure the grandparent is not serious, given CronoDAS's stated plan of living in his parents' house until they die and then comitting suicide.
Well, I'm half-joking, half-serious. I don't expect to have a daughter any time soon, so it's mostly just a little bit of fantasizing. I can't picture the name as being a barrier to anything, but I'll take your word for it. I really do adore the character, though. It's not because Flonne looks cute, it's because Flonne is kind, caring, and cheerful, the kind of person you'd want with you when things aren't going so well.
I wouldn't try to name a son Laharl, though.
I don't put a very high probability on my actually carrying out that plan; I give at least a 9 out of 10 chance that something is going to send my life in a different direction before my parents both kick the bucket. I do, however, plan on staying in this house for as long as I can. I like this house!
I was once in the same social circle as a guy named Legolas, although I never actually met him myself.
Apparently that was his actual name. His parents were evidently big Lord of the Rings fans.
I knew a girl named Kira after the officer of the same name on Deep Space Nine.
I ran into a girl named Kira at an anime convention a few weeks ago. In that context, the name brings something very different to mind.