Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents selected excerpts from online articles about the negative social meanings that have become associated with the names "Karen", Brad", "Chad", And "Brandon" in the United States.
Selected comments on this subject from a YouTube video discussion thread are also included in this post.
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.
This post doesn't condone the use of names for mocking and insulting purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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Click these links for previous pancocojams posts on this subject:
https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/03/why-becky-and-karen-are-used-as.html "Why The Names "Becky" And "Karen" Are Used As Mocking/Insulting Social Referents For Certain Types Of White Females (information & comments)"
and
https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-social-meanings-in-united-states-of.html The Social Meanings In The United States Of The Names "Karen", "Becky", "Chad", "Kyle", & "Ken"
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SELECTED ONLINE EXCERPTS
These excerpts are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.
EXCERPT #1
From https://www.abc10.com/article/news/nation-world/karen-baby-name-plummets-popularity/507-93b87091-7c8b-40f3-8f64-91d0db8f1825 "The name 'Karen' keeps dropping in popularity amid recent stigma" Karen Baby Name Plummets In Popularity", Author: Douglas Jones, Published June 2, 2021
"WASHINGTON — It's a sign of the times, yes, but it looks like the name "Karen" is fighting an uphill battle to stay mainstream.
It might not come as a surprise to many, as the name holds a certain vintage space in U.S. culture, since the height of its popularity back in the 1960s.
The popularity of the name Karen peaked in 1965, when it was the third-most popular name for baby girls born in the U.S. According to data from the Social Security Administration, there were 32,873 newborn girls named Karen that year, representing 1.799% of all female births in 1965.
Well, that status has plummeted since then and it really started to fall around the year 2000, showing a noticeable decline in popularity around 2010 and the years surrounding it.
In 2020, Karen ranked 831st on the list of most popular baby names in the U.S., falling 171 spots from its 2019 ranking as 660th most popular name. SSA data shows there were just 325 newborn girls named Karen in 2020, compared with 438 in 2019, 469 in 2018 and 552 in 2017.
The name hit its lowest ranking since 1929, according to the SSA.
The Social Security Administration compiles data on names according to registered Social Security number holders, and they have been doing so since 1879. Many people before 1937 never applied for Social Security cards so names during that time are not included in the data.
While the name Karen has certainly taken a big hit in the 21st century, overall it's still the tenth-most popular name for baby girls from 1921-2020.
[…]
The name of course has seen a sharp decline in recent years, no doubt in part, because of a string of incidents recorded and posted online of overbearing individuals in public deemed "Karens."
Last year, before Halloween, a Los Angeles-based artist sought to profit off the trend by creating what he called "Karen" masks.
Artist Jason Adcock make the scary masks with their distinctive stereotypical bob haircut and sold them on Instagram.
Adcock wrote in an Instagram post, "2020 is the year of the KAREN! Scare all ur friends with ur big hair and narrow mind."”…
EXCERPT#2
From
…."Although Karen was popular in the 1950s and 60s, when examining the most popular baby names of all-time, Karen doesn’t even make the top ten percent, which is dominated by enduing names like “Mary”, “Linda” and “Jessica.”
[…]
In 2020, according to Social Security Data, Olivia and Emma topped the list of most popular female baby names. However, neither name became popular until the mid 1980s, just as Karen’s popularity was waning.
[…]
Although Karen is no longer a popular baby name, in the past five years, the word has been repurposed as a pejorative to describe privileged white women. In fact, Google Trends now lists Karen as a pejorative.
[…]
Two other names, ”Becky” slang for a ‘basic’ woman and “Stacy”, a term used by “incels” to describe an unattainable woman, have undergone a similar (though less toxic) transition.”…
EXCERPT #3
From https://medium.com/mel-magazine/how-brad-and-chad-became-synonyms-with-douchebag-3c2a516f1197 "How ‘Brad’ and ‘Chad’ Became Synonyms With ‘Douchebag’" by John McDermott, Oct 6, 2017
"One of the most frequent (and funniest) tropes on @5thYear, an Instagram account devoted to the drunken hijinks of college students, is outing a male college student for insufferable behavior, and labeling him a “Brad” for it.
[…]
Brad thinks he’s cooler than he is, tougher than he is, more attractive than he is, funnier than he is and more well-liked than he is.
Brad, quite simply, is a douchebag, which is why @5thYear includes the hashtag #DontBeABrad on every Brad-related post.
Brad isn’t alone in his douchebaggery, either — he’s joined by his cocky cousin Chad.
Satisfying as it is to see a Brad or Chad get his due, one wonders how the names came to be shorthand for a particular kind of college-age male — an arrogant, self-aggrandizing, frat bro — and what exactly the real Brads and Chads of the world think about their names being used as pejoratives.
According to Indiana University linguistics professor Michael Adams, the negative association we have with the names Brad and Chad is a story as old as America itself. Brad is often short for Bradford, which started as a surname and is of Scottish-English origin, Adams says, reading from A Dictionary of Surnames. In Old English, the name literally means “broad clearing.”
The name crossed the pond in the late 16th century with the establishment of the first English colonies on American soil. William Bradford was one of the original Pilgrims, coming to New England on the Mayflower, and eventually serving as governor of the Plymouth Colony. “I have no idea if he was a douchey Pilgrim, though,” Adams says.
Either way, over centuries, the name Bradford became synonymous with New England aristocracy — so much so that women with the maiden name Bradford started naming their sons Bradford, to advertise that they were from the Bradford lineage. “If you were descendents of the Bradfords, or if you wanted to make it seem like you were, you might use Bradford as the name of your son — so that when you sent him off to the Exeter Academy, people would make certain assumptions about who was,” Adams explains.
And somewhere along the line, that got shortened to Brad.
Chad has an even more circuitous journey into the modern lexicon. Like Bradford, it’s Anglo-Saxon, but it started as a first name: Ceadda (pronounced “chadda”). The most popular Ceadda in history is probably, Saint Ceadda, abbot of Lastingham, bishop of York and Lichfield and the man credited with “the Christianization of the ancient English kingdom of Mercia.” But today he’s known as Saint Chad, or Chad of Mercia. Sadly, reports on how often St. Chad got totally blasted on communion wine are unavailable.
From Ceadda came Chadwick, which was a rough portmanteau of Ceadda and “wick,” an Old English word for town, Adams says. Brits named their towns Chadwick, and then adopted Chadwick as their surname.
How Chadwick came to America is unclear, but Adams guesses the Chadwicks were among some of the earliest English settlers in America. And just like the Bradfords, they named their sons Chadwick to maintain the prestige of their bloodline. Eventually, it was truncated to Chad. “So by a very strange route, Chad went from a first name, to a town name, to a last name, back to being a first name, and now a nickname, in the case just Chad,” Adam says.
This lexical history explains why we tend to think of Brad and Chad as WASP-y, old money, prep school, New England bros — there’s a legitimate historical basis to the Brad/Chad stereotype.
But it wasn’t until recently that the names carried a negative connotation. Brad hit peak popularity in 2000, when it was the 632nd most popular baby name (for boys) in the U.S., according to the Social Security Administration. It’s steadily declined afterward, and fell out of the top 1,000 in 2008.
Chad, too, reached its cultural zenith in 2000, when it was the 236th most popular name for boys. But like Brad, by 2016, it had fallen out of favor, checking in at number 800. (Data for 2017 aren’t yet available.)
For his part, Adams has had several Brads and Chads in his Indiana University classroom. “The Brads and Chads I’ve taught have never been at the top of the class, grades-wise. They usually sit in the back of the classroom. And while I can’t give you accurate statistics on their fraternity participation, they were certainly that type,” he says. “So from my own impressions, I can confirm the value of the stereotype.”…
EXCERPT #4
From
"The US Social Security Administration (SSA) just released the top baby names for 2022 and it’s safe to say that Karen didn’t make the list last year. Social media names and internet trends have more impact on the public perception of names than ever. When names are used in place of a joke, meme, or insult, parents will obviously avoid them to prevent their baby boy or baby girl from being teased. Of course, names always go in and out of fashion, but it’s clear that name trends are changing faster than ever. What was a cool, unique name one day could be an embarrassing name to avoid just a few months later!
[…]
Girl Names That Are Losing Steam
Karen was already pretty low on the charts, hence why it has been associated with the archetype of a middle-aged woman (more on Karen below). This name's negative portrayal on social media has knocked it completely off the charts.
[…]
The Death of Karen as a Name
Karen was one of the most popular names for girls throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Celebrities like Karen Carpenter made this a popular pick among parents, and the popularity of the name Karen peaked in 1965 as the third most popular name among all baby girls born in the United States!
In recent years, the Karen archetype was born. “Karen” is an entitled middle-aged woman, who usually wants to speak to the manager. Whether she lives in a small town or a city like Atlanta or Manhattan, Karen leverages her privilege to get what she wants.
Karens can be irritating and infuriating, such as “coughing Karen“ who coughed on people in a New York City bagel shop.
At their worst, Karens can be downright racist, like the San Francisco woman who called the police on her non-white neighbor for writing “Black Lives Matter” in chalk on her own property or the Los Angeles woman who accused the black man behind her in line of stealing her phone only to find it right there in her purse where she put it.
[...]
No one knows the first time that Karen was used but she has definitely become a staple this last year. Karen’s best friends Deborah and Susan share similar traits, hence a drop in those names as well.
Interestingly, Karen is actually one of the most popular names of all time. That‘s part of why her name is what it is--she‘s a typical, average, white woman. Karen has already been more of an older American name and it‘s likely that soon nobody younger than high school will answer to it.
Why Brandon is Declining as a Baby Name
Brandon has historically been a common name for American baby boys. It reached its peak in 1992, 1993, and 1994 when Brandon ranked as the 6th most popular name for male babies.
Since the 2010s Brandon’s popularity has been slowly declining, and the name saw a sharp drop for the first time this last year, and here’s the reason why:
The phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” became code for “F—k* Joe Biden) after a crowd chanted the latter at a small-town Alabama Nascar race. The crowd’s chants were initially misunderstood to say “Let’s Go Brandon” because they were happening while driver Brandon Brown was being interviewed after having won his first Xfinity Series.
After this mix-up, Republicans began using the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” to insult both President Biden and the Democratic party in tweets, in pics on social media, and in more elaborate demonstrations as well.”…
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*This is the way this curse word was written in this article.
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EXCERPT #5
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh0qXOOEA6Y "Trump and MAGA suffer SELF-INFLICTED BLOW with Latest ATTACKS, Total PANIC MODE" published by Meidas Touch Network, Dec 11, 2023
[Pancocojams Editor- All of these comments are from December12, 2023. I added numbers to these comments for referencing purposes only.]
1. @thomaswrzalinski7454
"Thoughts and prayers to all the Chads and Brads out there
who are having trouble working through their feelings right now.
**
Reply
2. @bradmarner2056
"Wait, I’m Brad and I don’t have a problem…except for the
repubs.😂"
**
Reply
3. @bradhaley8432
"@bradmarner2056 same for me as well"
**
Reply
4. @thomaswrzalinski7454
"Footnote [1]
@bradmarner2056 has an exemption."
**
Reply
5. @lisabradley5193
"Brad, now you know how every poor woman named Karen feels."
**
Reply
6. @tolkienfan1972
"🤣🤣"
**
Reply
7. @Bradleybrookwood
"Hey I'm a Brad and I'm as progressive as they come!"
**
Reply
8. @mikebegonia6134
"Like this! Great! 'to all the Chads and Brads out there..."
Reply
9. @RitaBowen1
"
