> The idea that it's racist is that the names were only funny to English speakers, because they sounded like English words they consider funny

This makes no sense to me: aren't native English-speakers of many races? Aren't there non-English speakers of many races also? Moreover, this happens with any pair of languages. I'm not a native English speaker and there are some English names that sound extremely hilarious in my language. I see myself compiling such a list just for fun. I wouldn't expect English people to be offended by this silly thing, which is inevitable: when there are different languages, there are word collisions and some of them are funny.

> people's names - from the Basecamp client list.

Ouch, this is different, then! I did not pay attention to this detail. Now I understand why the list of names does not circulate (but still, I don't get what could be so bad about it).

According to their response, it seems some of the names on the list (according to the founder, something like 6 of the 72) were phonetically funny in English but Asian in origin (as opposed to the rest, which were mostly European and phonetically funny because of suffixing "son" to something that sounded funny). The implication as I understood it, as when this was pointed out as to why while it was an inappropriate list it wasn't necessarily inappropriate in a racial way one of the employees responded by initiated an HR discrimination case against founder, is that the people that saw it as a racial issue are not happy to have it classified as not one.

>but still, I don't get what could be so bad about it

Making fun of people in a way that isn’t offensive is a tight line to walk interpersonally and best avoided altogether in professional circumstances. This is particularly true if you’re making fun of people for fundamental aspects of their identity, like names. How would you feel if your name was on a list somewhere and people were laughing at it and cracking jokes about it regularly? Some people might be okay with this, but I think others might be rather offended by it.

> I wouldn't expect English people to be offended by this silly thing...

I imagine it depends to a large extent on whether you've heard the same shitty joke about your name - hur dur your name sounds like butt! - from far too many people in your professional life. Remember, this is a list of client names that was created solely for the purposes of ridicule while being passed around internal Basecamp networks. In terms of racism, I'm white and British, and it definitely has a flavour of the cultural racism that was prevalent during the British Empire which, for all its differences, America inherited.

>there are some English names that sound extremely hilarious in my language.

I'd love to hear some, that sounds great.

Hah, cool.

https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-names-that-sound-f...

So the fact that the Chevy nova didn't sell in spanish speaking countries because the name means "no go" is racist too, then, right? I'm just applying the same logic.

> A popular but false urban legend claims that the vehicle sold poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because no va literally translates to "it doesn't go". This has since been debunked, however, as Nova (one word) means "nova" in Spanish just as in English. In fact, the car actually sold quite well in Mexico, as well as many Central and South American countries. Nova was also the name of a successful brand of gasoline sold in Mexico at the time, further proving that the name confusion was not a problem.

—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova#Urba...

You won’t find Mitsubishi Pajero in the Spanish speaking countries though…

Or Mazda Laputa, or Nissan Moco.

Super racist!