Ten years ago, I showed up at Bruce’s apartment in Atlanta. I was surprised to discover my couchsurfing host was African American. Yet, when I had a medical appointment with a guy named Kevin last week, I fully anticipated he’d be Asian-American.

Why is it that I’m surprised when an African-American man has a Scottish first name, but not when an Asian-American answers to an Irish one? The reason, I suppose, is due to our presumptions around name origins, and our expectations of how close people hold to monikers that reflect their own ancestral traditions.

The origins of people’s first names generally fall into three categories.

First, there are names so common they’ve lost geographic specificity. John, Bob, Steve…and Paul… are so ubiquitous that they don’t reveal anything about the person’s familial tree. Scratch the surface, of course, and that notion proves false. The most common first names in the USA are rooted in Anglo-Saxon and Biblical tradition. According to the Social Security Administration, the ten most popular boy’s names in 2024 were: Liam, Noah, Oliver, Theodore, James, Henry, Mateo, Elijah, Lucas, and William. More than half of them have Biblical origin; more than half maintain a primarily association with the British Isles (though several are rooted in Greek or early German). Despite their Anglo-Biblical bent, these names are so broadly distributed in American society, we don’t conjure much specificity before a first-time encounter with a John or a Jim.

Second are the names of recognizable origin that have leaked beyond their native geography. Many Irish names fall into this category. Sean, Colin, Liam are all Irish, yet it’s not unusual to meet guys with those names of divergent ancestry. When I meet an Otto, my mind registers, “Scandinavian,” while Salvador clicks, “Italian.” Still, those names aren’t stuck in one track.

Finally, there are the names that are stuck in a track. Akeem or D’Andre brings an African-American to mind, while Grosvenor or Archibald is full-on English. This also applies to linguistic variations of Biblical names. Pablo evokes more preconceptions than Paul; Pierre more than Peter.

Our presumptions about given names certainly play a part in our preconceptions, but how closely people align their children’s names with ancestry is an equally important component. I know Asian-American immigrants named Daniel, Robert, and Will. It is so common for Asian immigrants to take on traditional American names when they land on these shores, keeping a traditional Chinese or Korean name is the rarity. In a different vein, immigrants from Africa and the Middle East are much inclined to bestow historic names on their children. When I’m about to meet a Devonte or an Abdul, I have a stronger image in my head than when anticipating meeting a George or a Fred.

Am I being prejudiced? Certainly someone can accuse me of that, though every single one of us creates pictures in our heads before we meet anyone. The picture is based on the information we have at hand. Stereotype? For sure. But stereotypes don’t come from nowhere. Given little information, we tend to render our fellow man in broad strokes. The challenge is to see him as an individual, when we finally meet.

So it’s really no surprise that I imagined Kevin might be Asian-American. Our country is full of medical professionals who’ve adopted names easy to many American ears. But how in the world did Bruce get his name? “My mother gave all of us simple, British names,” he told me. “She did not want people to make assumptions about us, or our race, before they even saw us.” Whether you think Bruce’s mother’s concern is valuable or misplaced, I have to admit, her objective was achieved. I’ll always remember my first and only Black Bruce as a distinct individual.