A Girl Scout by Any Other Name

What’s in a name? Ask “Ayisha,” the girl sprinting across those Girl Scouts U.S.A. “peanut butter sandwich” cookie boxes.

Ayisha had always been Blakely Lauren Coe. At least that’s who she was when she and members of Troop 487 posed for the 1993 Girl Scout calendar and cookie boxes.

But when the cookies arrived, the 14-year-old Pasadenan and her parents were annoyed to see that she’d been given an African name. They see the misnomer as a stereotype.

Bonnie McEwan, Girl Scouts USA’s communications director, says all the cookie boxes portray real Girl Scouts in fictional situations constructed to avoid behavioral stereotypes and all the girls were given pseudonyms.

An Asian girl is called “Yoko” and a young Latina is “Maria.”

McEwan says an ethnically diverse group selected the names “to reflect the cultural diversity of the United States.”

But Blakely’s mother, Sarah Coe, says it’s not the name, per se, that rankles her:

“Please don’t think there’s anything wrong with that name Ayisha . . . Any stereotyping, whether intentional or not, is racism.”

McEwan says the Scouts apologize for any offense the name change may have caused, but they won’t change their practice.