In addition, also, as a native person, I will add —
A lot of us in modern day are given ‘white’ names, especially if we were born in close proximity with a white community or have a white parent. People on the reservation are given ‘white’ names all the time, and the way a lot of us reclaim our identity is by changing our last name / being adorned with a last name specific to our person + culture.
You WILL meet a lot of native and mixed native people with ‘white’ names, especially first names. You will also meet a lot of native people who have changed their names either to or from a ‘white’ name, on or off the rez, for their own personal reasons.
So ultimately if you are choosing a name for your native OC, this post is a good start, but you really, ultimately, need to consider things like:
what is their relationship to their culture / are they connected to their community?
is their nativeness a part of their identity they accept?
were they raised under circumstances wherein them being native was repressed or denied by those around them, specifically those who raised them?
have they given themselves a different name than they were born with?
what tribe claims them, and what names are associated with that specific culture (we are not all the same)?
— when considering names for native characters.
So this post is very good! But we are all nuanced individuals and genocide / assimilation has affected us overall. It is not racist to realistically depict the effects of indigenous erasure. It is more racist to deny them. Just think about the kind of character this is, and the background they come from. Those factors dictate A Lot for us.
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