Justice and Fairness

Kristin Boston
4/5/12
Engwr 102
Names

Why do names mean so much? A name is just a name right? Wrong, to people this can be a very soar subject. We fight from what our last name will be to a school mascot. What we name something is a big deal now a day. Names have a lot more meaning, like taking on your husband’s last name or keeping your own. We wouldn’t think that naming a school mascot would be a big deal but it can be, the same for choosing a last name. The meaning of names now mean a whole more than they use to. How much thought do mascot names go into schools? For one college, The University of North Dakota has major talk on if they should get rid of their current mascot and gets a new one. “According to the tribes, the term ‘Fighting Sioux’ and the Indian head logo are disrespectful and, in fact racist toward their heritage.” That’s just because I want to do what I want to do and it’s not fair that we make people act like that. The Sioux tribe finds major offense to the way they are being portrayed as the mascot. The word fighting before Sioux gives the Sioux tribe a bad look. The students of UND feel that the Sioux tribe should be honored that they are using them as their mascot, and they thought that putting fighting before Sioux was a good choice, because UND biggest rivals is North Dakota State University and their mascot is a Bison. The Sioux tribe is known for exterminating Bison. So the students of UND felt it was a good idea to have the fighting in the name to be very appropriate. Names now mean a lot more to people and people aren’t afraid to stand up in what they want and defending their name.
Would you take your husbands last name or keep your own? For one family the mother wants to use her last name. “My significant other looked like his whole world had been shattered when I informed him that just because (he thinks) everyone in the universe gives their kids their fathers name, it didn’t necessarily follow what we would do, too.” (America Now Liz Breslin) The mother is a feminist and says its not because she is a feminist that she wants to use her last name its because as she says it’s a family issue not feminist. Taking on your husband’s last name is a tradition. That’s how we can track our ancestors. If some of use our own last name and others use their spouses, how can we ever try to track down our ancestors and find out where we came from? We never use to put something like who’s last name will we use. It’s a much bigger issue now than it uses to be.
Another example of the surname is from America now by Laura Wilson “’I think she just fainted,’ he said. He’d just delivered the happiest news to his mother’s life-that her first grandchild had been born-and followed it up with a sucker punch to the heart. The baby was going to have my last name.” People take who will take the last name very seriously. It has been tradition ever since forever that the women take the man’s last name. And now all the sudden people want to go around and change it. To a couple of the grandparents now-a-days would be highly offended that the marriage would take the women’s last name. To me it’s about tradition. Why cant we just stick with tradition? It doesn’t seem that hard. I feel we just want to complicate things. I don’t understand why we can’t just have the guy’s last name.