Funny, you don't sound American!

The Rugby World Cup started this weekend in France, and this morning I watched the USA Eagles against the defending champions England ("watched" on my computer, since the match was only available here on PPV). The USA is usually overmatched in the Rugby W.C. and have only one two matches ever (both against Japan), so it wasn't a surprise they ended up losing to England 28-10. At least the US did better than Japan, who lost 91-3 to Australia.

What was a surprise to me was the number of Pacific Islanders on the US team. The national rugby team used to be made up almost exclusively of "old blues" from UC Berkeley, but this World Cup squad has players from all over. Or at least all over the San Francisco Bay Area. They're still mostly from the West Coast.

Midway through the second half of the US-England match, the British match commentator mentioned that US center Albert Tuipulotu's name "doesn't sound like an American name to me", implying that he was some sort of ringer from another country. Albert Tuipuloto is an all American boy, born and raised in San Mateo CA.

This made me wonder what an "American" name should sound like. The United States is such a melting pot, with citizens from all over the world, so nowadays Rodriguez and Nguyen and Tuipuloto sound every bit as "American" as Smith and Jones. In fact, I can't think of a single surname that couldn't "sound American". I guess nothing fires up my patriotism like a misguided comment from a British rugby announcer!