Another 15 presidents and why you shouldn't name your kid after them

After a rant about James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, a few friends suggested I start a podcast about why you shouldn't name your kids after certain people. Season 1 would be the presidents. Here are some (often editorialized and varying in importance) bullet points I'd go over for the second 15 presidents. To be clear, this doesn't mean you shouldn't name your kid like Chester or Arthur, but naming them Chester, Arthur, or Chester (A.) Arthur with the INTENT to honor a president is not advisable IMO.

1. Abraham Lincoln
1. Suspended habeas corpus (15,000 people were detained without charges)
2. So, the Emancipation Proclamation ONLY freed enslaved people in the Confederacy and then the 13th amendment still allows for enslavement as punishment for a crime
3. Secession and the Civil War broke out under his watch
4. Supported "assimilation" of Indigenous peoples
5. Approved the largest mass execution in U.S. history
6. President during the Sand Creek Massacre
7. Murdered (like, yes, this might not make sense to people but imagine looking up who you're named after and it's like...oh, he was shot in the head at a play...chill)
8. Admired Andrew Jackson (BOO!)
9. Against slavery but thought the enslaver Andrew Johnson was "a good man"
2. Andrew Johnson
1. Probably most famous for being the first impeached president (which he maybe escaped cause of bribery)
2. Opposed the 14th amendment which granted citizenship to former enslaved people
3. Generaly speaking, was against rights for African Americans
4. Enslaved people (for completeness, he did EVENTUALLY free them, but like...that doesn't excuse anything) and said the constitution upheld slavery
5. Supported Polk
6. Maybe sworn in as VP SUPER drunk
7. Did nothing (and often acted against the best interests of) recently freed people
8. Compared himself to Jesus
9. Pardoned lots of confederates, despite what crimes they may have committed (including contributing to the Lincoln assassination plot)
3. Ulysses S. Grant
1. Honestly, before doing research, most of what I knew about Grant was that he had a drinking problem
2. Supported "assimilation" of Indigenous peoples (had them deemed "wards of the state")
3. Enslaved people (like, yes, he did EVENTUALLY free them, but that doesn't excuse his actions)
4. Expelled all Jews from his military district (for completeness, he did do some things to walk this back A BIT)
5. Prosecuted pornographers and those that provided abortions
6. Suspended Habeas Corpus
7. Got involved in a Ponzi Scheme
4. Rutherford B. Hayes
1. Supported "assimilation" of Indigenous peoples
2. Advocated that his political party could "get along without the vote of the black man in the South"
3. Election was a bit dicey
4. Didn't handle the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 the best (though, to be fair, also not the worst)
5. Belonged to a political group that called itself the "Half-Breeds" (which, as far as I can tell, was them trying to reclaim an insult thrown at them, but like, bro)
5. James A. Garfield
1. Probably most well known for being assassinated in office (though his murderer would claim that it was the doctors' fault that Garfield died, which, actually, may have been fair)
2. Part of the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal 
3. If you name your kid Garfield, people ARE going to think of the cartoon cat
6. Chester A. Arthur
1. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
2. Fired by Hayes because his appointment was likely given as a kind of political favor
3. Didn't do enough for Indigenous peoples who had their land encroached upon
4. I find it sketchy that he had most of his personal and official letters burned before his death
7. Grover Cleveland
1. Was a sheriff, which meant he performed executions himself
2. Accused of rape and then had the accuser's child taken from her by the state (chill) and her admitted to an asylum (thankfully, she was released in 5 days because she was NOT insane)
3. Part of the Mugwumps, which is just a ridiculous name
4. Reluctant to enforce the 15th Amendment
5. The Scott Act
6. Viewed Indigenous peoples as "wards of the state" and passed the Dawes Act
7. Married his friend's daughter (who was young enough to be his daughter)--he was 49 and she was 21 when they got married. Oh AND he had been the one handling her father's estate and responsibilities after his death (chill)
8. Lobbied against the Lodge Bill which could have strengthened voting rights
9. Repealed the Enforcement Act of 1871 which had been targeted at preventing the KKK from paramilitary vigilantism
10. Federal intervention in the Pullman Strike
11. While he initially opposed the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawai'i, he ultimately caved
8. Benjamin Harrison
1. Wounded Knee Massacre under his watch
2. Suppressed the Ghost Dance movement
3. In general, wanted to "assimilate" Indigenous peoples
4. His second wife was 25 years his junior, and the former secretary of his first wife (who had passed away--shockingly, Harrison's kids were not thrilled with this)
5. Probably contributed to the Panic of 1893
9. William McKinley
1. Most well-known for being assassinated (and like, wouldn't that be a bummer to be named after a guy who is most famous for being murdered?)
2. Annexed Hawai'i (Manifest Destiny bro)
3. While he originally spoke out about lynching, he sure did not follow through on that rhetoric
4. Didn't protect African Americans during the Wilmington insurrection of 1898
10. Theodore Roosevelt
1. Tbh, seems like he was kind of a creepy kid (he killed or found dead animals and then, sometimes, taxidermized them and kept them)
2. Used his power in petty ways (like changed the rules of football?)
3. Possibly corruptly influenced in regards to the Panama Canal
4. Sued two newspapers for libel (it was dismissed, but not chill)
5. Maybe was bribed during his campaign with contributions from corporations
6. Big game hunter
7. Got pettily annoyed when Taft (his successor) did things on his own
8. Def xenophobic: "Roosevelt repeatedly denounced Irish Americans and German Americans whom he described as unpatriotic; he insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties"
9. Social Darwinist
11. William Howard Taft
1. During the Philippine–American War, he "approved of General James Franklin Bell's use of concentration camps in the provinces of Batangas and Laguna"
2. Dollar Diplomacy
3. He "announced in his inaugural address that he would not appoint African Americans to federal jobs"
4. Ruled in Lum v. Rice that segregation could include those of Chinese descent
12. Woodrow Wilson
1. Opposed women's right to vote for too long
2. He "authorized the widespread imposition of segregation inside the federal bureaucracy" and generally increased segregation
3. Probably cheated on his wife
4. Oversaw nearly 3 million men being drafted into WWI
5. Pretty sure I read he signed his love letters "Tiger," which like, I just shouldn't know
6. Slavery apologist
7. Believed the Confederacy was "heroic"
8. Told racist jokes
9. Literally screen The Birth of a Nation (though, apprarently, he eventually felt bad about it)
13. Warren G. Harding
1. Okay, this part isn't his fault, but Harding is a terrible name
2. Supported women's suffrage only after it became popular
3. Per Centum Act of 1921 was not great
4. Def. did the nepotism thing
5. Appointed Harry M. Daugherty as Attorney General despite his known back-room deals
6. Cheated on his wife SO MUCH
1. Pretty sure we know that he called one of his mistresses's private parts "clamshell" (yick)
14. Calvin Coolidge
1. Mishandled "the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster to hit the Gulf Coast until Hurricane Katrina in 2005"
2. While he didn't appoint KKK members to political roles, he sure didn't speak out against them
3. Contributed to the crash in 1929
15. Herbert Hoover
1. Was "accused of running forced labor camps for African Americans during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927" (he also tried to suppress these stories)
2. Despite being enamored of Chinese history, he viewed people with Chinese heritage as lower than whites
3. Definitely racist (see: "the lily white strategy")
4. 1929 crash happened while he was president and he did not handle it well
5. Didn't push for an anti-lynching law
6. Deported Mexican-Americans who were citizens
7. Met with Hitler and thought he was nuts, but still thought FDR was the biggest threat to the US (Hoover was vehemently against the New Deal)
8. He "supported the efforts of Richard Nixon and others to expose Communists in the United States"

(Prompt by me but also Kimisha Cassidy and Emily Kleeman)

"Her Majesty, the President" by lucidialohman. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.