My name is Kevin. I'm 27 and I'm from (west) germany. Most people I get to know will bring the topic up. I got a master's degree in physics and I have heard people say something like 'your name doesn't fit your profile at all' more times than I can count. I've seen girls in my sphere discard guys on Tinder partly due to being named Kevin. People do joke about the name and that's ok.
It's not terrible but it isn't great either.
What's missing in this article is the aspect of escapism. The mentioned names Ronny and Mandy were especially popular in East Germany for kids born in the late 70ies, early 80ies. I think many parents picked "exotic" names for their kids in some sense of longing for the places they could never hope to see. Maybe some simple way to be part of a larger world?<p>I could see the same mechanism in socio-economic disadvantaged parents. Their world is limited by money, not borders, but they still want to be part of the larger world.
The funny thing is that Kevin is not a very praised name in general either:<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/StoriesAboutKevin/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/StoriesAboutKevin/</a><p>“What is a Kevin?<p>A Kevin is someone who consistently or greatly shows a complete lack of intelligence through incompetence of social and societal norms, or is purposefully antagonistic in their poor decision making. Remember the kid in your class who would constantly get in trouble for really dumb things? He was probably a Kevin. Family members, friends, coworkers, and classmates can all become Kevins.”
Fellow Kevin here. While I was doing a fellowship [0] at the US Census Bureau last summer, I noticed a peculiar abundance of other Kevins working there. As a joke, I created this presentation [1] about this phenomenon, which I ended up accidentally showing the chief marketing officer.<p>He loved it.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.codingitforward.com/fellowship" rel="nofollow">https://www.codingitforward.com/fellowship</a><p>[1] <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/117Q3zuyWulkDGcGXp4BdJP36Tx72Wk9CQEv8-Sen64Y/edit?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/117Q3zuyWulkDGcGXp4Bd...</a>
You're better off sticking with the long established names of your culture. My parents picked really boring names (as I thought) for our family. We were named after our grandparents. We used to regularly chastise them for this when we were young. Now I'm glad of it. I could have been called Calvyn.
In some french-speaking countries, script-kiddies are sometime called Kévin. I'm not sure if is a reference to the famous Kevin Mitnick or to Kevin from the movie Home Alone or some kind of Kevinism.<p>These last years, I also hear people using "Jean-Kévin" instead.
I can confirm that it applies to other countries of the region. I think it's a result of this wild fascination with America that came after the fall of Soviet Union. People westernised quickly and without much reflection upon the process and are giving idiotic names to their kids. "Brajan" (phonetic for Brian) and "Dżesika" (Jessica) are already memes in Poland.
> The word "Alpha-Kevin" (combination of Alpha male and the given name), as being representative of a particularly unintelligent young person<p>Alpha-Kevin is a term I'll have to use more often
In Hungary the equivalent would be Roma families naming their children after foreign soap opera characters (e.g. Bobby [Ewing] in the 90s), footballers and other famous people, especially Latin American ones. By law names have to conform to Hungarian orthography (except if the parents have immigrant background)<p>Examples: Rikárdó, Armandó, Rodrigó, Dzsenifer (Jennifer), Dzsesszika (Jessica), Brájen (Brian), Dzsásztin (Justin), Brendon, Szamanta, Eszmeralda<p>Seems to be a universal thing across many countries that people in low socio-economic classes (black people in the US or Roma in Eastern Europe) give more, let's say, "unusual" names to their kids.
Naming things is hard. Naming people is harder. Many (most?) expecting parents spend hours researching names online or in "1000 baby name ideas"-books. My parents love my name. I hate it.<p>There are too many of us for names to be a unique identifier. First names are too generic to say anything about us, and they're usually assigned at birth, before any of our traits are known.<p>Family names are even worse; here's your father's last name glued on to yours, for no apparent reason. Or maybe your mother's. Or, if you want, in Belgium, a hyphenated version of both parents', but excluding any hyphenated part of theirs. This somehow implies that family is important, but only a small part of your family? I don't get that in a modern context.<p>Iain M Banks had an interesting take on multi-part names in The Culture, with the naming scheme at least featuring a chosen name. But sadly also including things you have no control over, like place of birth and parentage.<p>Letting everyone pick their own name would be nice. That's apparently already possible in some parts of the world, but not everywhere. And often you can only change it if your name is truly ridiculous or if you share a name with a serial killer or some such.
From a UK perspective, Kevin is not a very popular name either, and has a bunch of negative associations.<p>"Kev" has been slang for someone from a low socioeconomic background, possibly violent, often paired with "Sharon" or "Tracy" as a female equivalent.<p>So as an aspirational western name I'm not sure it works! At least for the English...
It also applies here in France, especially northern/eastern parts close to Germany.<p>Well, not for Chantal, which is not a very exotic name here.
There was a funny story going on in 2005: Ferrero changed the face on the packaging of the popular "Kinderschokolade" and many buyers didn't like the new face and were hence calling the boy "Kevin". There was even a campaign "weg mit Kevin" with 20.000 supporters, which handed over a petition to Ferrero.<p><a href="https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/kinderschokolade-wuetender-protest-gegen-das-neue-gesicht-a-389061.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/kinderschokolade-wuetender...</a><p>Translation:<p><a href="https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fwirtschaft%2Fkinderschokolade-wuetender-protest-gegen-das-neue-gesicht-a-389061.html" rel="nofollow">https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...</a>
Interesting. I moved to Germany several years ago and just assumed that the Kevins were because of an interest in Anglo names. I didn't know they had a stigma attached to them.<p>I'm trying to think of something equivalent from Canada, when I was younger, but nothing is really springing to mind.
I found this on my desk one day in the 90s...<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/16/opinion/observer-the-kevin-excess.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/16/opinion/observer-the-kevi...</a>
The article mentions a Uncyclopedia satire article helped kick off media coverage of this phenomenon. Here is the article:<p><a href="https://de.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Kevinismus" rel="nofollow">https://de.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Kevinismus</a>
Another strange difference between countries' perceptions is the Swedish princess Estelle's name.<p>I was on vacation in Sweden shortly thereafter, and while just about every German thought the name atrocious, befitting a prostitute, all the Swedes found it charming.
Fellow (German) Kevin here. I like how this topic is frequently being brought up again in loose intervals as if it is important to remind everyone every once in a while.<p>I can confirm that there is indeed a stigma associated with the name. As a white young male though, being grumpy about such thing would be quite disproportionate. In that sense, it sort of makes me get an idea of what it could be like to be ridiculed for something one has no control or responsibility about.