We are trying to come up with a boys name for our fourth boy and we like surnames for first names. Is the name Kipling (nickname Kip) out due to Rudyard Kiplings white supremacy even if we clarify we aren’t naming our son after him? Please advise.
I know not everyone can use the Twitter polls, but I think that’s a good way to cast a wide net for this sort of question—and those who can’t vote can leave comments saying what they WOULD have voted. Link to the Twitter poll. [Poll closed; see results below:]
For my vote (Twitter won’t let me vote in my own poll), I will say that although the name Rudyard Kipling is familiar, I am not familiar with his work or reputation—so if I’d met a kid named Kipling/Kip, I’d think it was adorable and not make any association with white supremacy. (But now that I know, I don’t think I can un-know.)
Yes! Sorry
I know with a man with the name Kip/Kipling, and that association has not once occurred to me!
Sadly, I think the name is better left unused. I think the name is unique enough that anyone hearing it would assume that he was named for Rudyard Kipling and it would be difficult to explain to everyone you encounter that that is not the case. While not everyone will know of his beliefs, for those who do, assumptions might be made. I’m sorry :(
I would assume a Kipling to be named after Rudyard, and I do associate him with colonialism/racism. I wouldn’t use it.
I’m in the same boat as Swistle. I’m not familiar with Rudyard Kipling or his work. White supremacy wouldn’t cross my mind at all.
110% yes but I am an English professor.
I love Kip so much! Could you do Kipton or Christofferson instead?
Why not Kipp? A surname and what you seem to wish to call the child more commonly than Kipling.
No negative association that I can think of.
For me, the name Kipling would absolutely bring to mind Rudyard Kipling, but I don’t know that I’d have had the negative associations (or any associations, really) come to mind without prompting. Upon reminder, though, The Jungle Book is pretty yikes, and I personally would not want any of that in play, especially considering that there’s not really any other Kiplings out there to soften the association.
Kip is great, though!
I love Kip, too. But Kipling immediately associates with Rudyard Kipling in not-great ways. I feel the same about Forrest, a name I love too.
While I did not know about Kipling’s white supremacist views (until now; thank you for spurring me to educate myself on that point), I am familiar with his Just So Stories and would definitely associate the name “Kipling” with “Rudyard Kipling.”
I’m going to answer in the form of a poem.
TAKE up the White Man’s burden –
Send forth the best ye breed –
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild –
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
Aaaaand that’s only the first stanza! There is so much more.
Anyway yes I would absolutely raise an eyebrow at a Kipling, sorry. How about Christopher nn Kip?
I would absolutely think of Rudyard and his white supremacist views if I heard Kipling as a full name. Kip is cute thought and could be arrived at as a nickname in other ways.
But even a tacit or unintentional nod to white supremacy would be a no for me.
I am not familiar with Rudyard Kipling or his work, so I’m in Swistle’s boat.
But if you feel you can’t use it, I know a toddler named Keppler who goes by Kep, and it’s cute.
I mean, you kind of are naming him after Rudyard. You like surnames, and you didn’t mention another reason for choosing that one over any others that lead to a nn of Kip. He’s the only Kipling you know. So what you’re really asking is “is it ok to give my kid the name of a white supremacist?”
And I’d lean towards no. People aren’t always going to ask you or him how you chose his name. They will just make assumptions about it, and the assumption that it’s after Rudyard is probably going to be at least as common as the assumption “oh I guess his parents really wanted a surname as a first name and loved the nickname Kip!” This is different than naming your kid Thomas even though Thomas Jefferson enslaved people. There are plenty of other Thomases; no reason to think it’s for that one. But Kipling is so unusual.
Looking at it from another angle, if I imagine myself with the name Kipling, I think I would be aware of Rudyard Kipling, and I think his views would bother me. “Kipling but not like Rudyard” is not how I’d want to think of my own first name.
I guess what I’m saying is, this is a name that comes with baggage as well as a cute nickname, and I’m not sure the cute nickname is enough to make up for the baggage you’re passing to your son.
I have a middle name that’s strongly associated with a famous woman who was admirable and pioneering in her field (think Florence Nightengale, or Marie Curie, someone like that). I’ve always been proud of that connection, so that probably colors my point of view.
This is an excellent point!
Yes I have no other associations to dilute Rudyard. I also associate him with the worst Colonial attitudes (though for the time I believe he was considered liberal -‘you’re a greater man than I Gunga Din’ his views are really abhorrent to modern sensibilities). Sorry. The only way out is if this is a family name of yours in which case he would have a ready explanation at hand.
For some reason I feel like 2020 plays into this as well. Like, this really isn’t the year for it.
What about Kingston? Kipton?
I definitely make white supremacist associations. It’s a shame because Kipling is a lovely name. I think it goes on the long list of attractive but unusable names.
Have you considered Kepler? It’s a German surname with a famous scientific connection in Johannes Kepler, whom I believe was very unproblematic for his time (the 1500s). NASA named a space telescope for him, which is cool. You could still use Kip as a nickname… Or Kep, of course, but I think either would work.
Just a thought.
My heart did a little squee when I thought I’d the nickname Kip on a little baby boy, so I see your dilemma. But, I‘d feel like the name Kipling is not usable. The thing is, Rudyard Kipling is the only prominent association with the name Kipling, and his views are not something I can reconcile with. If it were a common enough name that the association we’re diluted, I might feel differently. But, I can’t think of any other famous Kipling off hand.
Kip, like Kit (a la Kit Harrington), is a nickname for Christopher, though. Also, Kip seems like one of those true nicknames that can go with literally any other name, particularly with a name that starts with a /k/ sound.
Good luck!!
Well, I blithely voted no in the poll, but after reading the comments here I would like to change my vote to yes.
Additionally, I have also discovered a new metric for myself. If there is a need to ask if a name is out due to white supremacy, then the answer is yes, it is out due to white supremacy.
This!
I agree with the others who vote that Kipling is not usable. Rudyard is the only Kipling I can think of, and I have a pretty strong negative association with his work… Kip is very cute, though! I’m sure you can come up with another name to get that nickname.
Agreed with others that that association has too much baggage and would be awkward.
Kip is a cute nickname though! Maybe the full name could be Crispin, or he could have first name K middle P, like Karl Peter called Kip?
I would associate the name Kipling with Rudyard Kipling. I am unaware of the white supremacy connection. I would think of the poem If and think it was a nice way to connote your hope for him as a grown man.
This seems like a slippery slope to me. For all the kids named Lee, should their parents be concerned about the connection to Robert E Lee? Jackson —> Stonewall? Kipling isn’t diluted yet as a reference. In that way it aligns with Benedict in my head. Benedict always seems followed by Arnold and then traitor. When I hear Kipling, my brain clicks Rudyard then If, not racist.
That being said, names hold cultural significance. There will possibly be folks that immediately jump to that conclusion. I am slightly clueless about this.
The difference is that Lee and Jackson are extremely common names with a lot of different associations (i.e. Michael Jackson). The only well-known Kipling I’m aware of is Rudyard.
I’m with JMV in that my first association is with the poem IF, which is a lovely poem. Not the White Man’s Burden poem, which I very much disagree with, but calling him a white supremacist is judging him from a modern perspective when that wasn’t the world he lived in. Are we going to call most all the English of that time period white supremacists?
“Are we going to call most all the English of that time period white supremacists?”
Er… yes? The British Empire was explicitly a white supremacist project. “Everyone thought it so it can be that bad” isn’t really how this works.
Of course there may have been individual white Britons in Kipling’s time who were not white supremacists. But we know Kipling wasn’t one of them, because he left lots of writing on the topic. He thought that non-European people were primitive and needed the civilising influence of western culture. I genuinely don’t know what you would call that if not white supremacist.
Lee is a very, very common surname, and not restricted to English, as my old prof Ta-Ling Lee could tell you. Now if you name your kid Robert Edward Lee, I’m definitely gonna look at you askance.
I’m with PhancyMama. If there is even a sliver of a question about the name being associated with white supremacy, then it is time to choose a different name.
In this case, it is more than a sliver. This name has clear colonialism/white supremacy connotations.
Which sucks, because it is a great name!
I am familiar with Kipling, in that I’m aware he’s a ye olde timey author, but I’m not familiar with his work and didn’t realize he was racist.
I would skip, because you are aware he is, and the name is a very specific connotation that literally everyone will have (like me) even if they don’t know the possible bad connections. I like the idea of using a different k-name and just using the nickname Kip. Not all nicknames need to be incredibly obvious. But it would be a lot to saddle a baby with when there are other options. Keats/Keaton strikes me as great options. I would even think it might be fun to do two middles like:
Keats Isaiah Preston (Kip)
Just as an example for fun! Sorry the original Kipling sucked so much.
If I met a Kipling, I would immediately think of Rudyard Kipling. So yes, the guy who wrote “the white man’s burden” would be most people’s first association with your kid. I would not use it.
What are your other kids’ names? That might give us more to work with.
Maybe you’d like Sterling?
Or, other surnamey names you could use Kip as a nickname for…
Killian
Kirby
Kimball
Kirkland
Yeah, I would think so. But you have gotten a bunch of Kip related options that you could use instead.
I love Kipling as a name! It is too cute. And generally I think we are all one disney character or mass murderer away from a societally inappropriate name. And there are lots of other names associated with deep ties to racism or other forms of hate out there. Jack the Ripper, Stonewall Jackson, Michael Jackson and yet that doesn’t seem to bother a great number of people.
But clearly this association bothers you, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking.
So move it to the middle, call him Kip, but give him another first name. Most corporate email is first name – initial – last name; as a middle, Kipling won’t pop up first in someone’s in box. So if someone does have strong views about a historic author to whom your son has no connection and for whose views he is not responsible, then it isn’t the first thing they think when they receive his email/application/etc. And you get to keep Kip.
Another voice chiming in to say that the standard I hold for just about everything in my own life is that if I need to ask myself if something is out due to white supremacy, I’ve just answered my own question. Similarly, if I am going to do something or use something and think “is this appropriative?” I choose not to do it. Because honestly, if I’m asking, I think we’re done. I also really appreciate the commenter who pointed out that your child might really not be ok with a name that has that kind of association!
I tend to agree with Swistle. I mean, I know who he is but white supremacy wouldn’t come to mind.
You could go with something like Kipton to get the nn Kip.
At the very least, I could assume you are okay with it. That the white supremacist associations didn’t bother you enough to dissuade you.
Surname styles will naturally lend themselves to interpretation as appropriation (remember the debates over Cohen?), colonialism, or oddly, both. If you repeated the survey, I’d wager that the results would swing the opposite way. So, if you love a name and in your heart you feel your motives are pure, then don’t survey folks. No name is going to be disapproval-proof if you ask the right question. Elizabeth (the First), Virginia (Woolf), Winston (Churchill) are all Anglo names, and one could make robust arguments for their believe in or commitment to British and/or white supremacy. But we tend to look away because of the other contributions they made for first-wave feminism and for fighting fascism in WWII.
Or, in Elizabeth Tudor’s case, proto-feminism.
I had forgotten about Rudyard’s writings, other than that he wrote a book a Disney movie was based on. So, if someone came to me and said “What do you think of Kipling?” I would say no.
The closest I can think is Seuss- there is one association based with the name that everyone’s going to have as a baseline, and it’s the FIRST NAME, there’s no escaping it. Even the positive association is still child-like. People are comparing it to Jackson, or Elizabeth, but those are names with lots of other history other than one person that SO MANY people know! This is more like the Adlai Stevenson question that came up recently, even a neutral association is still a major deal.
It fits right in with the current trends, but I would move on.