Well, there's certainly no joy in being saddled with a name that everyone of your designated gender and approximate age on earth seems to be sporting either. Ask me.
This is a discussion frequently held on Swedish messaging boards as people have some very clear definitions of what makes a name "white trash" (yes, we use the phrase untranslated).
There are long term studies in Sweden indicating that a man with a name ending in -y is five times more likely to have spent time in the penal system or have treatment for substance abuse. They were also less likely to hold down a job, despite a booming employment during their formative and young years. Of course, these studies were made on men born between 1945 and 1965 when there was a fashion for anglophone or anglophonic (i.e. made up **** that sounds vaguely English) names among the groups that are already over represented in prison. These boys would be named Johnny, Sonny, Ronny, Kenny, Billy, Tommy etc and they also got a bad start in life. On the one hand, clearly the names didn't push them into crime and/or violence but the names certainly make other people who don't like to be around that, wary of "Tommy" or "Sonny". So parents who thought they were giving their kid a nice, normal fashionable name nonetheless gave them a stigmatized one.
Now the discussion goes that trying to be special marks your kid as white trash and once again there are anglophone names, at least for the boys, at the center of the discussion. What are perfectly normal and acceptable names to anyone in the English speaking world, in Sweden means your mum switched to menthol when she was expecting you "because she wanted the crib to smell nice for the baby". Kevin, Dennis and - I **** you not - Texas are some names that will mark you out. Usually they will be spelled with the unnecessary addition of the letter h and whatever they can find from the arse of the alphabet, like "Cewin", "Chewinh","Denniz", "Dhenniz" and "Thexaz".
These are all fashionable names. Loads of kids wear them. Where they are from, they have no particular connotations but give them to a Swedish kid and no matter how unfair that is, their first grade teacher will have to constantly fight a suspicion that Thexaz is a little slow and probably violent. Whenever he ****s up, teacher will get confirmation bias and remember it a lot more than she would if Erik, Daniel or Oscar did the same thing. Naming your kid Thexaz or Chewin is not actually that far from calling him Hitler, in impact on his life.
Sweden has naming laws only slightly less strict than Denmark's. You can't name a boy Blomman ("Flower"), because apparently it's too "gay", you can't name a kid Gud ("God") or Satan - other turned down names are "Hosiannah", "Dirt", "Asterix", "Lovejoy", "Annncocccozz" and "Brunstgnägg" (app: "Rutting Neigh").
Now explain to me the logic behind allowing a name like "Thexazz" - dooming a boy to a lifetime of "So... your parents liked dog racing, Buckfast and scuzzing, did they?" or "It was probably Thexazz. Keep him after school until he admits." or "So. Where did you serve your time?" - but not "Asterix"?
It's too random and too impossible to say which names will be "bad" names. I don't think anyone would have reacted to Hosianna Davidsson on the school roll but many teachers will go "Oh, ****! Another Cewin!" no matter how well behaved and studious Cewin is.
Since we're arguing that the name in itself causes these reactions, then we can't blame the teachers for not getting past their predjudices, but the parents for picking a name from Cumbucket's Big Book of Baby Names. The fact that Kevin sounds perfectly normal to you, as an English speaker, is neither here nor there. Chewin will have to live somewhere where his name is a badge of dishonor. Whether he deserves that or not.
