Dazbo,

I agree with you that contemporary African American names are difficult to pronounce-particularly if a person tries to use the English vowel sounds instead of the ah, a, ee, oh, oo, sounds that Spanish, Italian, Arabic, KiSwahili and some other languages use. Also after awhile, you learn that most of these names adher to a fromulaic pattern that dictates {or at least strongly suggest} which syllable receives the accent.

That said, I goofed on the pronunciation of the name "Deabalik" {which I have never heard or seen before-which is no excuse}.

Taht name is pronounced "dee-AH-bah-leek" The "AH" is only slightly accented, that syllable flowing into the syllables that follow it.

I admit that I'm not fond of this particular name. I "hear" your point that the name "Diabalik" is similar to the word "diabolical". However I'm not sure that these children will make that connection {I didn't until you mentioned it}.

The male {Arabic} name "Malik" and its female form "Malika" have been very widely used among African Americans since the early 1970s. You will note that the name "Deabalik" rhymes with "Malik".

Many contemporary African American children in my area and I suspect throughout the USA are familiar with many male & female names starting with "Dee". Given this context, and the large number of other name created by rhyming, I think that they may consider "Deabalik" just another name.

And besides, in my opinion, the personality and charisma {or lack of charisma} of the "owner" of any name will play a large part in determining if people disrespect that name.

I repeat my view that it seems to me that African Americans are much more accepting of "differnt names" and maybe that acceptance is growing among that age group and other African Americans {and perhaps also other races/ethnicities}.

In the 1980s or so, some middle class Black people had a term for these names-we called them "ghetto" name. And that wasn't a compliment.

I suspect that there are alot of older Black Americans who are still making fun of these "made up" names.



Azizi