Kevinism in Germany

 At some point, about twenty years ago, here in Germany....I started to note some Germans who had unusual English first names (Kevin, Chantel, Mandy, etc).  

I asked my German wife about this, and she noted that this was a East German (DDR) 'thing'.

There's actually a 'ism' that has been attached to this....referred to as 'Kevinism'. 

There was a point which started up in the 1980s in old DDR where parents named their kids these exotic names.  

Various papers have been written over this and some people have researched this trend....to find where and how it started up in old Communist East Germany.  There are different beliefs over this trend....so it's not exactly scientific.

There is one suggestion which leads to East Germans on the lower-economic scale who seemed to identify with this trait....naming their kids in this way (to make them different).

The belief that these kids (named in this fashion) got unfairly noted and attracted negative teacher and professor attention?  Well....that's been brought up and generally accepted as 'true'.

Cheap 'gossip'?  Well....yeah, that's also part of this trend.

My thoughts?  At some point in the mid-1980s....VCRs were readily available in West Germany, and tapes were widely circulated.  My belief is that various VCRs (illegally of course) existed in DDR, and that tapes were passed around of US, West German, British, and French movies.  

In this scenario, Huns would have five or six East German friends come over, and he'd play some movie like Tootsie or Night Shift on his illegally procured VCR.  After the movie ended, there'd be some long extended chat over 'Chuck' or 'Belinda' (Night Shift characters), the music, the storyline (which is a marginal two-star script), and they probably played the movie at least two more occasions that Saturday evening.  

So the names of characters stuck with people.  Remember....in the dull DDR atmosphere....even movies like Airplane II, The Toy, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, and Looking To Get Out....were great alternate means of reality (at least in DDR).   I know most of you today don't remember much of Ace of Aces or Jinxed....but they were among the top fifty comedy movies of 1982.

About once a week....someone will come on German TV with this American-sounding name....be between the age of 30 and 40, and I'll ask the wife 'East German?'.   Yep will usually be the response.