Connotations of a Particular Name

So I've been thinking over names for one of my secondary characters, and one that I've found that I've grown fond of (still not finalized yet) is the name 'Cyrus' I've attempted to google and see other famous people with this name(to kind of see what readers may think of), but unfortunately all I get when I search is result after result featuring things related to Miley Cyrus and her father. I've never met anyone with this name and I have the slight worry that the name has already been labeled by society as a 'Black' name. I wouldn't mind people seeing a (racially ambiguous in-universe) character as a POC, but the fact he's a naive, promiscuous, Plucky Sidekick who occasionally proves to be Too Dumb to Live invokes some serious Unfortunate Implications if he's immediately labeled as 'Black'.

• Could anyone tell me if my suspicions are correct, and on a different note what images come to mind when you see this name? Input of either would be very helpful :)

The first thing that comes to my mind is this guy.

edited 24th Jun '13 10:54:29 AM by imadinosaur

what do you mean by a "black" name?

I mean the kind of names that have been labeled by society as belonging to a particular race,(even if it's more of a stereotype than from common usage) something like Terrence, Trevon, Nia, Demetrius, Tyrone etc. There's nothing wrong with those names, but if you knew a person had that name, and you met them and suddenly realized they were a WASP or such, you'd be surprised.

I wouldn't think of Cyrus as a particularly "black" name. It doesn't sound the least bit African or pseudo-African to me, but rather Greek or Latin.

Does anyone else notice that we tropers seem to care an awful lot about Unfortunate Implications here?

edited 24th Jun '13 2:54:24 PM by Jabrosky

The Muse, you don't really seem to know much about name origins, do you? Because you seem to be basing your associations off of modern trends.

As imadinosaur pointed out, Cyrus is an English derivative of a Persian name; it is not "black". Demetrius is actually a Greek name, so it would actually wouldn't be surprising at all if a white person had that name.

I'm aware that it's origin is not African in the slightest, but I'm basing it off of our modern day assumptions, which would probably have a greater influence on one's personal interpretation.

No, I don't think it's a particularly "black" name. I'd be more inclined to call it an "old-fashioned" name.

First thing that pops into my head is "Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire." Then again, I got my B.A. in History, so that's probably to be expected.

I don't think of it as a particularly "black" name, and frankly I don't see why you're so worried about it being one.

Thanks, I just wanted to ensure that this character wouldn't be immediately seen as the Black Best Friend Uncle Tomfoolery, when that really isn't the case.

I think of Cyrus the Great and Cy Young, myself.

I'll also note that the associations that a given name has for a given person are presumably entirely cultural, and therefore may vary from culture to culture: in short, the associations that a given reader has may not be those that you expect.

For example, neither "Terrence" nor "Demetrius" has any significant connotation of race to me, and I think that, given no further information, I'd be more likely to imagine characters so named as white.

My first association is with Cyrus the Great as well. Second is The Warriors.

Otherwise its just an uncommon but not unheard of name. I might assume the namer is somewhat religious, due to Cyrus' positive role in The Bible. But its not a strong connection: they could easily just be history buffs or fans of Civilization.

My association is Cyrus "the Virus" from Con Air.

Ninja'd. Damn.

I can't speak from personal experience but I found a nice article on line of the Top 20 'Whitest' and 'Blackest' Names. Demetrius and Terrance are both listed as black. Actually all the names you listed are black. Were you reading off of the same list I just found? Anyway I don't know about Cyrus. Even if there are cultural connotations you can go against them, but if the character fits the black stereotypes it's going to be difficult, at least for those who are familiar with the culture. It's probably best to just look at the character himself and come up with something meaningful.

@The Muse: It sounds to me that you're worried that people might think the character is "Black" and then go on to think that his negative traits are a racist take on Black people as a whole. If that's the case, why not explicitly state that the character is not Black (e.g. by making him White, Asian, etc)?

Well he is a magical being who is capable of swapping into different bodies (and does several times over the course of the story) Because of this, I wasn"t planning on making his characterization too appearence description heavy (because it is subject to change)

edited 25th Jun '13 4:00:03 PM by TheMuse

Was that study made in the USA? The thing with US naming trends is that they are usually modern and generally aren't chosen to reflect a particular person's cultural/racial/national origins.

Doing some research, a majority of names of both the "white" and "black" lists are of Indo-European origin. An interesting trend is that the simpler Biblical names are chosen as "white", while more exotic sounding Hebrew, Arabic, or Persian names/words are chosen as "black" names. Oddly enough, several of the names considered "black" are either synonyms for black or translate to black from another Indo-European language.

edited 25th Jun '13 5:09:10 PM by shiro_okami

In that case, I doubt you will run into any race-related issues. Moreover, the name "Cyrus" doesn't strike me as being caricaturally "Black" the same way "Tyrone", "Shaniqua" or "Latoya" are.

Honestly, I can only think of Cyrus as a pale, almost vampiric character.

Cyrus = Miley to me too. not black at all, more like Gaelic in my case.

Quite frankly, I can't think of ANY name i can readily associate with blacks.
except maybe "Aineesha", which sounds like your typical Sassy Black Woman.

Cyrus sounds like a really old black guy who yells at kids from his porch to get off of his property to me.

When I hear the name Cyrus, I think of that guy from Pokemon. :P

As for stereotypically "black" names, that'd be something like Ghetto Name, right?

It must be a cultural thing unique to the USA, as I get no skin-colour associations with any of those names but I'm from New Zealand and the only racially-linked names we have here are actually in the other race's languages.

If you told me of a girl called Linda, I wouldn't know if she were of European, Maori, African or Chinese extraction. Tell me that's her "English name" and that her real name is Li-Peng, then I'd assume she's Chinese.

"Rangi" is a name I'd associate with a Maori, but so far as "traditional" English names go, they have no connotation to me and I'm just as likely to see any given "English" name borne by any race, either as their given name or the name they've adopted to spare themselves the pain of hearing English-speakers mangle the pronunciation of their given name.

It's totally alien to me that any name, short of a name from an African language, can be deemed a "black" name.