Personal Names that Became Ethnic Epithets

Abstract

AbstractThe inventory of generic nicknames for ethnic persons and groups, which have been used in American slang, dialects, and other popular speech, reflects the history of ethnic conflict in plural society. The sociologist can usefully view ethnic epithets as the lexical content of urban and ethnic folklores. About one in six of these stereotypical names is fonned on a personal name. In a search of the scholarly records of American popular speech, I found 186 such terms and 32 variants for 35 different ethnic groups. Over 100 of the terms are given names and a few surnames that were thought to be common in various groups and came to be applied derisively to any member of the group. About 50 other names are nicknames formed on personal names that historically have been used as symbols of anonymity and low status, especially those fonned on John and Charlie. Finally, over 30 tenns are personal names taken from popular historical associations, literary characters, popular verse, and folklore.

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