This is Part II of a five part pancocojams series on the male name "Jerome".
Part II provides information and comments about the perception of "Jerome" as a "Black name" in the USA even though there are more White people named "Jerome" in the USA than there are Black people with that name.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-origin-meaning-of-name-jerome.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. Part I provides information about the origin and meaning of the name "Jerome".
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/01/united-states-mass-media-examples-that.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. Part III presents some United States mass media examples that include the name "Jerome" that may have contributed to "Jerome" being considered a Black name.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/01/bo-diddleys-song-bring-it-to-jerome.html for Part IV of this pancocojams series. Part IV showcases the 1955 Bo Diddley song "Bring It To Jerome".
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/01/will-lizzos-2019-song-jerome-add-to.html for Part V of this pancocojams post. Part V showcased the 2019 Pop/R&B Lizzo song "Jerome".
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The content of this post is presented for cultural and onomastic* purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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*One definition of "onomastics" is "the science or study of the origin and forms of proper names of persons or places". https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/onomastics
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PERCEPTION OF THE NAME JEROME AS A "BLACK" NAME [Even though there are many more White people named Jerome than Black people]
Pancocojam's Editor's Note:
If the definition for "Black names" are "names that are exclusively or mostly given to people who self-identify as Black -or more specifically as African American), the excerpts in this pancocojams post documents that "Jerome" actually isn't a "Black name".
Some excerpts in this post and other posts in this series suggest some cultural reasons why the name "Jerome" is frequently considered a "Black name" in the United States.
Pancocojams Editor's Note: These excerpts are given in no particular order. Excerpt #1 was also quoted in Part I of this series.
Excerpt #1:
From https://www.mynamestats.com/First-Names/J/JE/JEROME/index.html
"Summary
The race and Hispanic origin distribution of the people with the name JEROME is 81.6% White, 3.0% Hispanic origin, 12.1% Black, 1.4% Asian or Pacific Islander, 1.4% Two or More Races, and 0.6% American Indian or Alaskan Native. These figures should be considered only as a rough estimate. The purpose of this graph is to compare the name's specific race and Hispanic origin distribution to the distribution in the general population of the US.
[...]
On this basis, the people with the name JEROME have a higher likelyhood of being White and a lower likelyhood of being Hispanic origin.
{...]
The state with the most people named JEROME is California where 12,997 people have this name.
North Dakota is the state where you are most likely to meet a person named JEROME, as 153.33 in every 100,000 North Dakotans have this name.
[...]
The most popular full name is JEROME Johnson. 0.86% of all the people named JEROME have this family name.
There are 17465 last names associated with this first name."..
-snip-
There are more White people in the United States with the name Jerome than people of any other race with that name because there are more White people in the United States than people of any other race.
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Regarding "Jerome Johnson" being the most popular full name in the United States for people named "Jerome", here's some information about the most popular last names [surnames] in the United States:
From https://names.mongabay.com/data/white.html
"Most common last names for Whites in the U.S.
Last name / Surname-Surname rank among whites; % of people with surname self-identifying as 'white'
SMITH- 1 ; 1,742,947 ; 73.3%
JOHNSON-2; 1,143,082; 61.6%
MILLER-3; 967,768; 85.8%
BROWN-4; 837,886; 60.7%
JONES-5; 786,173; 57.7%"...
-snip-
I used semi-colons instead of hyphens to enhance this list's readability.
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From https://names.mongabay.com/data/black.html
"Last name / Surname; Surname rank among blacks; Number of occurrences among people self-identifying as 'black'; % of people with surname self-identifying as 'black'
WILLIAMS-1; 716,704; 46.7%
JOHNSON -2; 627,720; 33.8%
SMITH-3; 527,993; 22.2%
JONES-4; 514,167; 37.7%
BROWN-5; 476,702; 34.5%"...
-snip-
I used semi-colons instead of hyphens to enhance this list's readability.
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Excerpt #2
[Pancocojams Editor's Note: Notice that this researcher categorized "Jerome" as a "distinctively Black name".]
From https://www.sociologicalscience.com/download/vol-/september/SocSci_v4_469to489.pdf
S. Michael Gaddis
University of California, Los Angeles
"How Black Are Lakisha and Jamal? Racial Perceptions from Names Used in Correspondence Audit Studies
[Note #3- Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004) found that some distinctively black names, Maurice and Jerome in particular, were not perceived as strongly black in a small test sample in Chicago."
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Excerpt #3:
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=White%20Jerome
"TOP DEFINITION
White Jerome
A young adult vaper that is obsessed with an underaged girl.... He is also white with a black man's name.
Everyone at the Vape Shop: "What's up White Jerome!!!"
#cracker#white man black name#pedophelic
by Grizzly757 October 06, 2018
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This is the only urban dictionary.com entry for that term.
*A vape shop" is a retail outlet specializing in the selling of electronic cigarette products". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vape_shop.
Therefore, a vaper is a person who smokes electronic cigarettes/products.
This urban dictionary definition of "White Jerome" is negative while the urban dictionary definition for "Jerome" (found at https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Jerome is positive and focuses on that man's attractiveness to females.
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Excerpt #4:
From https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/trump-found-a-white-dude-named-jerome-to-be-in-charge-o-1820094164 "Trump Found a White Dude Named ‘Jerome’ to Be in Charge of Our Money Because Nothing Makes Sense Anymore" by Damon Young, 11/02/17
..."I saw [the news] that someone called “Jerome Powell” was also trending, which made me assume that he must be the backup quarterback for the Houston Texans or something. Or that it was perhaps the title of a new mixtape from Drake….Of course, I was wrong. Jerome H. Powell is just the name of an über-rich white dude who’ll chair the Federal Reserve. Full disclosure: I don’t know what the Federal Reserve is or does, really. I know it has something to do with money and, I don’t know, reserving it or something, but that’s about the extent of my Federal Reserve knowledge. The Federal Reserve could be giving me a lap dance right now and I’d just wonder if it took tips with PayPal.
What I do know, however, are multiple ni&&as* named Jerome. And most either go by “Rome” or “Romey,” and they all somehow look exactly as if their name should be Jerome. Jerome is the most self-aware name ever. I also know a gaggle of Powells. I even once crashed a Powell family picnic because my man was dating a woman from the Powell fam and she invited him to meet her family, and he brought me along as an excuse to leave early if the food was wack. (It wasn’t. I stayed and got a T-shirt.) But I know of no white dudes named Jerome and zero white people named Powell”...
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*This word is fully spelled out in that article.
Regarding the comment that "Powell" is a Black last name, here's an excerpt from https://www.mynamestats.com/Last-Names/P/PO/POWELL/index.html
..."The race and Hispanic origin distribution of the people with the name POWELL is 70.0% White, 1.4% Hispanic origin, 26.0% Black, 0.4% Asian or Pacific Islander, 1.7% Two or More Races, and 0.6% American Indian or Alaskan Native."...
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Excerpt #5
From https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090717191531AASqu4n
"is the name Jerome a black name?"
1. Anonymous, 2009
Favorite Answer
"i know a couple black guys name jerome. but any one can have that name."
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2. Vegas Jimmy. 2009
"The first Jerome known to history was Saint Jerome, who lived in the fifth century in Asia Minor, and first translated the Latin Vulgate Bible out of the original Greek and Septuagent. He was an Italian by birth, so no, it is not a "black" name, whatever that is. It has perhaps taken on a cachet of being a name favored by those we now call "African-Americans" for boys."
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3. Anonymous, 2009
"St. Jerome was a citizen of the Roman Empire and he was white. For this, I would say its a Greek name, but someone could use it as an African American name. After all, we can name our kids any name we want."
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From https://www.quora.com/How-did-certain-first-names-that-are-not-African-in-origin-become-associated-with-African-American-culture-in-the-United-States-E-g-Tyrone-Tyrell-Antoine-Jerome "How did certain first names that are not African in origin become associated with African American culture in the United States? E.g. Tyrone, Tyrell, Antoine, Jerome"
"Adrian Marshall, My most knowledgeable subject, ironically not my most up voted or viewed.
Updated Nov 4 [no year given]
I'll be my normal unpopular self on Quora. The answer is simply racism (I'm not saying overt bigotry). Most of the older names like the names you mentioned are European names. They became popular with black people and once that happened, they fell out of favor with whites.
It's the same reason why GM is currently struggling with the Cadillac brand. When black people like something in the US it becomes a stereotype for some reason. Cadillac is now a "black man's" car and whites have stopped buying them. White guys with the name Tyrone invariably go by "Ty" because otherwise they get chided sometimes even by their black friends. I went to school with a white guy named Malcolm, guess what, he went by his middle name and in no way was anyone to call him Malcolm. (I went to a backward, rural southern highschool by the way).
You've heard of "white flight". Well when blacks moved closer to whites, the whites moved away. That seems to be true for housing, name trends, and automobile status symbols.”
-snip-
This excerpt was also quoted in the 2015 pancocojams post entitled "Why "Tyrone" Is Considered A "Black Name" In The United States (with information or how, why, and when this name became popular & why it lost its popularity)" https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2015/07/cultural-influences-on-perception-that.html.
One reason why the name "Jerome" may be considered a "Black name" in the United States is that that name nearly rhymes with the name "Tyrone" which frequently has been considered a "Black name".
Part III and Part IV of this pancocojams post considers other cultural factors that may have contributed -and may currently contribute- to the perception of "Jerome" as a Black name in the United States.
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This concludes Part II of this pancocojams series.
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