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NEW YORK

No. Born in the United States, the college senior with the Greek first name and the Ghanaian last name grew up in Philadelphia.

But Ackah, 22, is hopeful that change is coming, that the idea of each “American” renown will expand beyond monikers so as Tom, Harry, Sally and Jane and Smith and Jones. He figures he’s got a strong weapon on his side: For at least the next four years, when people look to the most powerful American in the country, they’ll be looking at Barack Obama.

“I think it will help mob have being an intelligent being that people in America aren’t just John, Jack, Mary,” Ackah said. “They’re Zenas and Barack.”

Some impediment

Obama’s name gave him his share of trouble for the period of the campaign. He acknowledged its unfamiliarity to most numerous Americans, and there were times supporters of his opposer made a point of using his centre name, Hussein, which was seen as an attempt to cast doubt without interruption his background and faith.

But the next four years will make secure his name is not any longer unfamiliar.

People have already named their infants after him.

The more people hear it, the more mainstream it becomes, declared Don Nilsen, a professor of English linguistics at Arizona State University and co-president of the American Name Society.

“Who is in addition American than the president of the United States?” he said.

Names traditionally considered “American” tend to be “British-sounding stuff,” reported Cleveland Evans, professor of psychology at Bellevue University in Nebraska. “We are stillatory basically an English-culture countrified.”

He and Nilsen pointed out that immigrants have long had a history of changing their names to fit in more with the United States or have had others change it for them.

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