Names and Careers

You were dismissing posters anecdotal evidence based on the fact that your 'evidence' was based in science, psychological research etc and therefore more reliable.
I am therefore questioning the validity of this research, and if you read the post by Nell who appears extremely knowledgeable on the subject (and puts it far better than me) you would understand why.

My boss thinks it's chavvy not to have a middle name. He's a see you next Tuesday and religious to boot. But it's true that some names are more common than others in professional jobs, like Thomas, Daniel, Catherine, Elizabeth, Andrew, Christopher etc.

You can't dismiss any studies offered as fact, because no studies have been offered as fact. No citings given, and no-one with any sense of science offers studies as fact

YY exactly Benchmark. Because it's 'not just the name', that's exactly why people hand-wringing over it on these boards are (bar seriously extreme cases) missing the point. Being called Wayne etc is unlikely to be the problem. Being born to 'the kind of parent who calls their son Wayne' is.

I still think the best course of remedial action is for lots of people to choose names which buck those trends, and thankfully I think that's something that is happening. But then I would say that - neither my parenting or my politics are about advancing my child's relative prospects.

(DS has an Old Testament name, which is familiar to his 'troubled inner-city' home without I think becoming a byword for either his class or ethnic background. I rather like this ambiguity.)

People do make judgements all the time, course they do, but that will be the case regardless of what name you choose.
An arty profession might dismiss a John Smith over an Artemis Fox, and might be drawn to a Camelia over a Harriet. Who's more likely to be noticed as a musician? Yes lots of famous people have normal names but a more creative, unusual name tends to help (hence people creating stage names)
The reason I dismiss the studies offered as fact is because they can't control for other variables. The average parent of an Elizabeth is likely to be different than an average parent of a Poppy but that doesn't mean that if the Poppy was born to the Elizabeths parents she wouldn't have the same chance in life and be just as successful (whatever that means).
Names that are spelt incorrectly or ridiculous I agree are limiting, but provided the name is acceptable amongst the child's peers and not laughable, they will find their own way in the world.

No its not just the name, that's the whole point. Its easy for posters to think I'm a snob rather than understand the truth of how the world actually works. I don't care, I'm not remotely a snob, I'm just a realist.

Everybody judges everything all the time. Its how the human brain works, we have a constant need to categorise. All of you pretending to be above such things do it too, at least some of us are honest about it.

Its a very complex area that involves far more than just a name, and I'm surprised people can't see that. I guess people prefer to think they live in a much nicer world than they actually do.

This is what worries me about naming my daughter (currently preg)

I want her to be taken seriously when she grows up so don't want to give her a cutesy girl name. So many girls names are like this though.

It completely depends on the name. If you call your child hashtag or char-donet people will laugh at the name and it will hinder the child.
There is a very large pool of names that are acceptable these days and it just doesn't follow that only classic traditional names go far in life BECAUSE of the name. It just happens to be that a lot of wealthier, higher class fee paying school parents tend to opt for these names.
I have employed many people and I am usually drawn to the unusual names. They tend to stick in my mind if I'm looking through 100's of CVs.

fake, I would guess that the answer is yes. I have seen a lot of negative reactions to Irish names spelt the Irish way as people seem to think that having to spell your name out to people for your whole life is a problem.

I don't actually think it is a problem. It is the case with my name that no one ever spells it correctly, I don't care - its an unusual name with an unusual spelling. But this seems to be a big problem on MN.

DS has a "black" name, he is a pale little celt. I chose the name because I love it and I don't give a stuff what people MN think. But I did give him a very normal middle name which he hates. On the plus side as his name is one syllable he has never had to spell it

UrethraFranklin1 is unfortunately right but I believe the reason she is right is because of the prejudice and downright nasty snobbery within society and her own posts are socked in this. People judging others names, do you also advice against foreign or black sounding names?

I know a doctor called Britney. I met her once, several years ago, and remember because it is so unusual. I know far more doctors called Tom, Matthew, Charlotte, Elizabeth, etc.
I'm sure it is not just the name that makes the difference and it would be simplistic to think it is.

Ha! Well you live and learn

It's Menzies! It's a Scottish name.

I don't actually know the names of many high court judges but unusual names don't seem to hinder liberal democrat MPs. Ming, for example

This is exactly why all three of my DCs have traditional names. My dd has a friend called Tigahlillee poor kid. Her mum made no issue of telling me my DCs names are 'pretentious and snobby' when I said what an unusual name her dd has in a completely non offensive manner, I literally asked for clarification of spelling for an invite (mainly because I didn't believe anyone could actually be so daft while naming a child)

Uretha is right, although it is sad that she is right.

If even a 10th of people are saying things like "can't imagine that name on a high court justice!" then that's a 10th of people who are filtering through CVs, too. The studies which have been done on traditionally 'black' vs 'white' names are telling too - they are American and are as much about socio-economic assumptions as racial ones.

People, consciously or unconsciously, use the information available to make judgements. That's why you don't put your date of birth or a photo on your CV, and it's why a name has an effect. They may not even realise why they're thinking that this person 'just wouldn't fit in here', the same as they would if they had a prejudice about an ethnicity which was evident in a name.

I reckon the naming forum on this site should be called simply Names as opposed to Baby Names.

I agree with Uretha well at least her research. I do live on a council estate that is designated as a deprived community and receives extra funding etc that comes with that. I have come across far more unique spellings and hyphenation of names than I ever did when I was in the RAF and among mainly MC folk. Dd1(16) has a very classic name and dd2 (4) not so classic but a real name spelt in the usual way. Dd2 is at school with a Dighlilah a Kaylaa a Keighlsea. Nothing wrong with those names per se but I don't see the need to mess with the spellings.

Urethra is completely correct.

I feel very sorry for children who are saddled with a name that will never be taken seriously. Cruel of parents to inflict that on them, IMO.

You don't have to. Doesn't mean the rest of the world isn't doing it though.
I do want more for my kids, which is whyI would never restrict them with a silly non name. Doesn't mean they all have to be called Bob, does mean don't call them Cupcake-Diamante.

Why do we have to conform to the facts and figures though? Don't you want more for your kids than you had? Break the mold instead

Uretha is correct.

I have an unusual name. If I'm honest does attract a certain type of pre-judging about my ethnic origin (which is entirely incorrect). I'm not sure it has had any effect upon my job prospects, however I think it matters less when a person has professional qualifications.

I don't believe unique or common names create a barrier for education, and if well educated, a job will usually follow, regardless of name.

I meant to add - I've not looked properly at the existing research to see what confounding factors they've controlled for, and what their conclusions are, so some of that is redundant. But I still think it's worth making it explicit, because the advice given so frequently on the back of it ("if you call your son Jayden he will be less successful than if you had called that exact same child Oliver") is a very narrow application of the headline correlation, and my suspicion is that it's not well founded.

One of the problems here I think is that people build a lot of causal narratives out of statistical correlations.

So, the pure statistical observation is that people with [whatever] sorts of names are more/less likely to hold a degree, enter [whatever] occupation, whatever.

At some point, this analysis is controlled for those variables which are identified as potentially explaining away this relationship. Off the top of my head, I'd think about controlling for ethnic heritage, socioeconomic markers of some description, geography, school exam grades at whatever age, etc. Obviously whether you identify these correctly or not enormously influences how much faith anyone can have in your findings, but at this point we cannot pretend we are dealing in simple, objective quantitative analysis.

At that point, we need to clarify what we're really saying:

• that names give away vital clues about people's backgrounds and therefore (eg) interview panels discriminate against them, consciously or otherwise?

• that these names hamper a child's life chances over and above the general effect of the socioeconomic background stuff: that an otherwise 'non racist' teacher will get the best out of Matthew but not Tyrese because she will think him more 'ghetto'? That Chacé, pronounced Chase, will be treated as illiterate and therefore become illiterate, because of her parents' atypical relationship with phonics? Even then, though, you're not necessarily identifying the effect of the name itself - you're as likely to be identifying families who are less able (willing?) to support their child's upward social mobility, relative to others of the same socioeconomic background.

• simply that people with unapologetically working class names tend not to infiltrate the higher echelons of society? Because that's kind of a non insight.

just as anecdote doesn't scale up to data, I don't think this data applies especially well to individuals, and when "how can a child named x become a high court judge?" is evoked on threads on here, I think that's often a misguided comment. I don't think a child from a well-connected and enabling background is at all likely to be kept out of the legal profession by an atypical choice of name (good news for Skypod). And for the 'aspiring' young person from a council estate, I rather think name is a long way down the list of hurdles to overcome if that's the career path they want to follow. Names are fairly changeable. Those who are otherwise primed for success will generally find a way to work them to their advantage.

I agree with the pp who said it's much less relevant for this generation anyway, and hurrah for that.