Halsey & her partner welcomed their baby: Ender Ridley Aydin. [Dlisted]
Gael Garcia Bernal goes blonde at the Old premiere. [JustJared]
Cannes is over, so enjoy Tilda Swinton’s oversized pants. [GFY]
Rachel Brosnahan wore Vivienne Westwood to the amfAR gala. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Quentin Tarantino thinks he redefined Sharon Tate’s life. [Pajiba]
Should SCOTUS justices have term limits? [Towleroad]
Is it possible to rethink “true crime” as a genre? [Jezebel]
Rosamund Pike doesn’t get enough credit for having really funky style. [LaineyGossip]
Teachers share what they learned from their students. [Buzzfeed]
Look at these absolute units! Just perfectly round boys and girls. [OMG Blog]
Imagine carrying a baby for around 40 weeks, giving birth, and then looking at it and naming it “Ender.”
I heard it means rare in Turkish. It just doesn’t translate well.
Ha! Worst part is, until I read the article I thought Ender Ridley was a dual homage to Ender’s Game (total UGH!) and Ridley Scott (perfectly respectable).
she’s not turkish to my knowledge so yeah, totally agree
@Ellev the baby’s father is Turkish?! I guess she is the only parent tho in your mind.
I read that the baby’s father Alev is Turkish.
Im Turkish and I think it’s a beautiful name. Imagine being so closed minded that you think that only English names are pretty. It has a beautiful meaning in our language.
I’m sure it’s beautiful in Turkey, but in English, it sounds negative.
I like it too, and I liked Enders Game… shrug…
Funnily enough, in English, YOU sound negative.
Esma:
As soon as I read that it’s a Turkish name with significance, I liked the idea of the name. But the combination of Ender Ridley does sound like a fixation on Sci Fi, which is problematic only because Ender’s Game is hugely racist and sexist. The movie tones it down, but the book is horrifying. The author belongs to an ideology that actively believes in and supports eugenics (i.e. racially specific breeding).
BettyRose thank you for this knowledge. I had no idea. My district has a Sci Fi unit and I was considering Ender’s Game as the class set (we already had the set so we wouldn’t need to purchase more and it is already pre-approved reading). I appreciate the knowledge.
Imara219:
Definitely do some research on Orson Scott Card before choosing one of his books. The references might be subtle enough that younger kids don’t pick up on them, but from an adult perspective, it’s all pretty straightforward. I read it when I was working in student services because some of my students were talking about it, and whoa. At least in the first book, the children are very young, so there’s no sex which is maybe why it’s approved on your book list, but the references to girls being at an evolutionary disadvantage and the way the Jewish and Black characters are discussed is pretty uncomfortable. I guess the overt homophobia comes out later in the series.
@Esma
Thank you. Some people are so xenophobic and offensive. Imagine somebody writing that your name is dumb. BTW, Esma is a beautiful name. I wrote down below that my children’s middle names are Turkish. I suppose this person would think their names are stupid. My children happen to love them.
Word.
Yeah stop
That. Geez.
I love this name. Was#2 on our list
@Esma, agreed. I’m not Turkish and I think it’s a super cute name, though maybe because my first language is not english I don’t automatically connect it with the word “end” to me it sounds like a nature/forest name, something a bit whimsical but not too strange or twee.
Imagine wanting to name your baby something from one parent’s culture and having an ethnocentric ignoramus saying it’s “silly.” I guess my kids names are silly, too, because they come from my country of origin.
In no way did I say names from other countries are ugly or silly. They picked a word from another language and, when translated to English, it sounds like a not nice word to call a child. It sounds like a curse on a child. There are English words that are bad words in other languages. If someone were to name their child that innocuous-sounding English word but raise their child in a place where the word seemed not-so-innocuous, to me, that’s not a great idea.
Don’t you know everyone is supposed to be named Stacy and John ??? How dare someone have an ethnic name. How dare they !!!
Oh for Christ’s sake, any bicultural family wrestles with this. We always think of “what does this name sound like in the culture where we intend to raise the child, will the child be made fun of for having that name, does the name have any bad associations?”. It’s a common thought process. Its outcome may vary, but it doesn’t make KNy an ignoramus or imply that she’s against ethnic names. There are tons of ethnic names that do not sound like a word in English and do not invoke any direct associations. This one does, no way around it.
Oh please. Just stop, KNy. Stop. Their child, their choice. I have a friend named Ender. It’s a perfectly fine name. It’s not a “curse.”
And yes, it does make them an ethnocentric ignoramous. She actually SAID the name was “silly.”
Of course their child, their choice. We’re on a gossip website snarking about celebrities. And I’m allowed to think it’s silly that they picked a name that many are going to look at and think of a racist book (Ender’s Game), provided he grows up in the US. My grandmother was literally born in Turkey. There are hundreds of other Turkish names to pick from. Like Larisa said, so many families who want to incorporate their culture take this into account.
Halsey’s real name is Ashley, so I am certain all through school she was “Ashley F” in a class with at least 3 other Ashleys. Its not surprising she and her partner chose something more unique for her child (and in the circle of life, Ender might be more inclined to name their child whatever the Olivia / Sophia / Noah equivalent at that time is). I like the name, it grows on you
Ender is a pleasant-sounding name. And I don’t think Halsey should need to base her choices on a science fiction novel that half the world has never heard of. Orson Scott Card is certainly well known in the US, but I don’t think Ender’s Game should be a deciding factor. In the book, Ender is a childhood nickname for a character named Andrew. So, should people stop naming their kids Andrew too?
And I’m always willing to give authors the benefit of a doubt on topics because fiction should be free to represent individuals and cultures, even in ways that we find ugly. But Card manages to also be douchy when he’s speaking for himself too, so he lost my open-mindedness a while back.
It’s a tough call with names, and people shouldn’t be preachy about it. I anglicized my great-aunt’s name for my son because the pronunciation is pretty much impossible to suss out by most Americans, and I didn’t want him to have to spend his entire life explaining how to spell and pronounce his first name. We already have to spell out our last name. (And the masculine version of the original name sounds very similar to a girl’s name in English, and kids are mean and don’t care about adult conversations on gender and ethnicity.) I made a choice to sacrifice authenticity for ease of use, but the important thing for me was the intention of honoring a beloved family member. Other families will make other choices — it’s all good.
Malicifent – My point was that the combination of the two names *Ender Ridley* in the context of a celebrity baby name gave me pause, not the name itself, which outside the celeb world probably wouldn’t evoke those associations.
And this discussion got me thinking about how I know someone who comes from a family line of men named Adolph. No man in three generations has been given that name (anyone need that explained?) but he had really wanted to honor his grandfather by naming his first born son after him. So he came up with a creative nickname that would honor the grandfather without burdening a child with that name. And yes of course it’s his culture, his family history, and he had every right to name his kid Adolph. He thoughtfully chose not to.
A curse?
Wtf
@bettyrose. I get it, it’s the first thing I thought of too. I’m old and a nerd, so I read Ender’s Game when it was first published. And I first misread Ridley as Ripley — so I was excited that there was a callout to Alien and the ever-badass Ellen Ripley. I’m just saying that, at a certain point, you can make yourself crazy with second guessing how everyone will choose to interpret a name — barring obvious choices like Adolf.
And by the time Ender goes to school, Ender’s Game will have been booted out of the sci fi canon, so I’m thinking his fellow Gen Zs (Gen AAs?), won’t even get the reference.
100% with paranormal gal. I can’t at the ignorance from some commenters here. The world does NOT evolve around English or the sci-fi pop culture “interpretation” or reference. It’s a reflection of your own projection, ignorance, and narrow-mindedness. Ender Ridley Aydin is a lovely name.
Imagine reading an article about how a woman who had a tragic miscarriage finally was able to carry and give birth to a healthy baby and instead of being happy for her, leaving a bitchy comment instead
Nowhere in the linked article did it mention a miscarriage. Of course a happy and healthy parent and baby are awesome.
@Kny
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-meaning-of/turkish-word-2846afcde63a7f2595d7d7be2522678d18619be5.html
I still think it’s silly.
Gee thanks. My children have Turkish middle names, and they are NOT silly. They are beautiful names, and popular in Turkish culture.
Ethnocentric much? Everybody’s supposed to name their children something you think is appropriate?
Oh and I don’t believe for one second that your grandmother was born in Turkey. If your grandmother was or is really Turkish (or “born in Turkey” as you say) you would have more respect for the name choice.
And you didn’t even look to see that Halsey’s baby daddy is Turkish??
Oh kny, you’re just embarrassing yourself 😂
Tilda’s pants are the “I can’t fit into my usual work clothes” end of pandemic suit. Where do I get a pair. Or five.
Accurate!
Haha totally. This is basically how I’m dressing for work these days, guys.
Happy, happy, joy, joy, for the new baby and to the parents. Congratulations.
+1 and I like that her initials are also an acronym for Equal Rights Amendment.
I’m of two minds with the the name. Yes, it’s a perfectly valid, normal Turkish name. But also, yes, most Americans, if they know it at all, are going to associate it with Ender’s Game (which, yeah, not great). I hope she, he and their child do not have to spend years explaining that no, it’s not after the highly problematic book, it’s just Turkish.
It’s sort of like being German like me and naming your son Adolph – a perfectly normal German name, for sure, but oh, just way too much baggage. I have a close friend who named her son Homer because both she her husband are professors or Greek antiquity. And she still gets irate when the little boy (he’s like 6 now) says, “Hi, I’m Homer” and people respond with “D’oh.” And while I think that’s a jerk move to pull on a little kid, I get sort of frustrated with her because could they really not anticipate that most Americans would not immediately associate Homer with not the Greek poet, with with the Simpsons?
I think it’s a nice name and they have the right to name their child anything they want – far be it from us to judge. I do hope nobody casts aspersions on them for picking it.
I love the names Kermit and Homer and I did not use them specifically because I didn’t want my kid associated with frogs or morons. You really have to make choices as a parent.
WIth names, it’s easy to have a slightly myopic view – if you are a classicist, you may assume that everyone will associate the name ‘Homer’ with the philosopher. Even when the reality is that for the general public, the name will evoke Homer Simpson. And though it’s baffling to anyone who is not the parent, it happens more often than you’d think! One of my sister’s friends named her daughter (a few months old now) Bobby Fischer, not realising that there was a relatively well-known (male) chess player of that name. Or another giving her child the middle name Farina because she thought it sounded cute, unaware that in Italian it means flour.
I think her facial expression says it all. She’s full of joy and the way she looks at him says to me that that don’t GAF what anyone else thinks.
It doesn’t look like that at all to me. She looks shell-shocked and exhaustion. And I get it, been there, but that’s not an expression of joy.
Yeah! to me she just looks knackered
Lovely name. Congrats Halsey
I don’t know about Tarantino redefining Tate, but he did remind people of her life….and her horrible and tragic death. I read a book about her and those murders. She was a sweet person. Everyone described her as nice. The men in her life were not so good. If she hadn’t been murdered, she would have likely gotten divorced and gone on with her life and career, probably becoming a presence in comedy films. Just imagine, she might have been in Young Frankenstein, playing the part Teri Garr made famous.
I think Ender is a beautiful name. Halsey has dealt with fertility problems and has always wanted to be a parent so I’m really happy their dream came true.
Ender is the name they chose for their precious child.
Who gives a rat’s ass what anyone else thinks of it? Seriously!
@KNy: It may not have been your choice but it is theirs. End of.
I just…the whole name thing is weird. People snark on baby names all the time on this site. I mean Bey and J named their twins Sir and Rumi and the post was hopping with insanity but if someone comes on here to be like….”Ender. 🤔…hmmm…(pause) that’s kinda odd” they get called Ethnocentric or ridiculous, etc. Like ok I guess…but where was this “chill on kid’s name because parents can do as they wish” energy with Beyonce or anyone else? 🤷🏾♀️
Concerning the birth…congrats to Halsey and her dude.
THIS
Commenters can sometimes get a bit hypocritical as to what types of criticism are okay versus what is overstepping or offensive. It’s perplexing. We discuss baby names all the time on here! It’s okay to think that Ender Ridley is a curious name, because it is. It did sound very sci-fi to me upon first hearing it. There’s nothing wrong with saying that, lol, I’m sure the parents realized that themselves. I also understand that it has significance to them and that’s great, but that doesn’t mean people are terrible if they want to discuss it!
For real and the doubling down on cruelty of a differing opinion is problematic. I would say there is some subconscious bias at play but who knows.
Thank you for being a voice of reason! We’re all entitled to like or dislike a name. Unless you dislike it SOLELY because of it’s origin, I don’t see the issue 🤷🏻♀️
Charlotte I keep the same feeling throughout all of these baby name posts. I was confused reading the down-the-throat-jumping comments.
The true crime article was interesting, but as a true crime but I feel like the author didn’t really understand the “club”. Shows like Dateline and Snapped are very soapy, and in general we aren’t listening for the gory details and the podcasts that are gratuitous with gore are the ones that don’t tend to do well. In general it is the outsiders who come Ip with the catch phrases like murder can be funny. No, murder can’t be funny, but we can be funny while we mock the bags of trash who abused the woman before murdering her. I feel like much of the article missed the point. The Kristin Smart case was basically solved BECAUSE of a podcast, and many podcasters featured episodes on Rodney Reed as his execution date approached which lead to a huge petition and eventually a stay. There’s a lot going on in the community that is completely missed in the article – it makes us sound like we have no empathy which is actually the opposite.