Top Ethnic Names

About

On January 9th, 2009, YouTube user thatboyandrew uploaded a satirical video titled "Top 60 Ghetto Black Names". The video consists of a boy and his friend reading exaggerated examples of stereotypical black girl names into the camera before ending their countdown with the opposite (a stereotypical white girl name) as #1. The combination of coming up with mock names and a final punchline led eager users of other ethnicities to contribute their own versions.

Origin

In the description of the original video, which has since gained over 33,000,000 views, Andrew explains he started the list out of boredom during a school class. It was passed around the room and made its way back to him with dozens of additional names. The second boy in the video, Issac, reluctantly agreed to make the video despite worrying some viewers would interpret it negatively. The two recorded the video in less than 20 minutes, though have since commented they would have spent more time on it had they known how popular it would become.

Spread

YouTube users began copying the video format in two different ways. Some, like user Mawaan Rizwan, counted down stereotypical names of other races as in his Top 45 Indian Names video on the left. Others in various fandoms listed stereotypically "ghetto" interpretations of well known character names.

Watermelondrea

Watermelondrea is one of the names featured in Andrew's original countdown. During the October 8th, 2015 edition of The View, the hosts played the video after discussing a study showing black-sounding names are more likely to be discriminated against. Raven-Symonè controversially commented that she herself discriminates against "ghetto names like Watermelondrea". Her controversial comment was covered in the media and sparked a major backlash on Twitter, especially among incredulous black commenters who accused her of hypocrisy due to her own ethnic name.