incongruity

incongruity
Originally uploaded by madabandon.

At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, I must mention a phenomenon that strikes me more and more lately: the culturally confused name. What is it? Take the name Cooper Lowenthal, for example (I did not make it up). The first name, Cooper, suggests generations of dusty WASP heritage, a large ramshackle house on Martha's Vineyard, attendance at St. Paul's, then perhaps Amherst or Yale. Lowenthal is clearly a Jewish name. So what gives? Is this the same as the older practice of immigrants in America, changing one's last name to something more "American," less ethnic? Ralph Lauren, for example, was born Ralph Lifschitz. Would he be the household name that he is today if he were Ralph Lifschitz still? Doubtful. With increasing frequency I encounter these odd hybrid names. Taylor Rabinowitz. Tucker Chang. Gardiner Cacciatore.