Outgrowing names

[Happydoingitjusttheonce]

In dentist waiting room yesterday and dental nurse calls "Alfie". A near 6ft 16 year old with a tracksuit and key wig rises from his seat. He probably made a cute Alfie when he was a toddler. Do kids outgrow cutesy names?

Except they are publicly open treacle. I'm open anonymously, and referenced my own bias at the start of the thread as likely wrong.

Koala, I couldn't have got as far as I have by telling it as it is. That's a terrible approach. Sensitivity and diplomacy are the keys

'Open anonymously' . Actually you're something of a coward. I bet you're not open about this snobbery/bias at work, because you know how unfair and unreasonable it is.

Spot on Margot.

I frankly don't give a care what anonymous strangers on the internet think. Neither should you

I care because you are in a position to deny jobs to people based on their parents' choice of name and you go right ahead and do that, and because you mismanage your time to such an extent that you justify your criteria by claiming that you do not have time to develop a better basis for weeding out applicants. You also mismanage by not delegating, if time is an issue.

Did you study HR, or management, or any subject related to your current position?

Happydoingitjusttheonce Thu 07-Sep-17 07:02:55
Plenty do mirror, they just won't tell you
That is what people tell themselves when they seek to justify something to themselves that is actually indefensible. 'Everyone else is doing it and actually I am braver than they are because I have been open about it while the rest of you are boring PC virtue signallers'.

Your failure to appreciate the problems caused by communal religious observance in the workplace indicates to me that you may need a refresher course, if your previous answer was 'yes'.

Earlier you sought to justify your policy born of poor time management plus prejudice by alleging that your clients or customers would not stand for it if they had to be in the same room as a Chardonnay.

Imagining that you are doing everyone a favour by giving them what they want, and thinking your prejudice is responsible for the growth of your company are beliefs that could only be true if your company's business is printing far right election leaflets.

Sensitivity and diplomacy are the keys - to what? To getting away with discrimination that has nothing to do with good business practice?

In my company, and in my life, nobody except the people who read this thread know I do this

Your company is being very poorly managed if you are the only one involved in the hiring process. By 'very poorly managed' I mean 'atrociously mismanaged'.

I'm one of probably 100 involved in recruitment, in addition to a significant HR team.

And we don't practice communal religious observance, I'm not sure how you got that impression from me joining in Ramadan through personal choice with a Muslim friend? The same friend who comes to the Christmas party. Are you a public sector worker? Very different in private industry.

Nothing that any of you say moves me.

One thing that I find odd is that the OP clearly associates choosing shortened names names with being uneducated. As I've said upthread, my son has one of the shortened "old man" names the OP refers to so of course I'm biased, but her perceived demographic for these names doesn't tally with mine. I would say the majority of my friends are broadly similar- not from a wealthy background, state educated, went to university, liberal and interested in the arts and current affairs. I don't think many of my friends are what you'd call solidly middle class, and lots of us definitely have working class backgrounds, but I think we are all employable, bright and have a broad knowledge-base. Unsurprisingly, a lot of us have names that were popular in the early eighties and our children have names that are popular now.

I imagine a lot of our friends naming their first children were in a similar boat to us. We didn't know many young children, and the names we grew up with felt a bit boring as names for our own children. Names that sounded old-fashioned and/or posh when we were younger now seemed fresh and different. There's also been a huge resurgence in popularity for all things retro and rustic: plenty of people in their twenties and thirties enjoy baking, gardening and crafts and lust after little cottages with bunting and a veg patch. It's hardly surprising then that these people are choosing names from their grandparents' or great grandparents' generations.

When we chose DS' shortened name it sounded (to us, and no doubt the thousands of others who chose it that year) retro but fresh and quirky, derived from a solid middle class name and benefitting from those connotations (as exemplified by the OP) but also 'accessible' because it was a name widely used say a hundred years ago and therefore not something that sounded pretentious for a family with our working class roots, and the shortened version didn't feel like we were trying to be grand. I imagine we aren't alone in this, and that would explain some of the popularity of shortened cutesy names, but as I said at the beginning- I question the idea that these names are only used by uneducated people. They have really grown in popularity, but I imagine the early adopters would have been your typical Guardian reader!

'It's called "hauling up the ladder behind you", squoosh'

Sad isn't it? Her feelings of shame towards her own background being projected on to potential candidates from a similar socio economic strata. Seems a very negative way to live one's life. And yet all the prejudice in the world won't change who she is and the fact that she is one of these people she seems to go out of her way to reject.

I doubt the op even works in the field she says she does TBH. Several glaring oversights now I've RTFT.

She's just on a wind up.

Mirror, regrettably for all those with names I make negative associations with, I'm not on a wind up. I've not said what field I work in other than professional services.

That's the issue OP. The public sector would outlaw this practice whether or not it had a positive affect overall on service. The private sector needs to make a profit and so will take fewer risks.

I suspect that the exact reverse position is true in public services and in my experience the service is mostly inferior.

Sure thing OP.

Hmmm my dd's name has been mentioned several times

Am I worried? No

Give it 20 years and her name will be the norm

Is her name chardonay -bluesoubriquet

Without outing myself, I deliberately chose names that have what I consider nice nicknames (shortened versions) and lovely full names- timeless names.
So for example Elizabeth and Theodore. Beth and Theo. Neither will sound odd if introduced as your dr in however many years time (yup, high hopes for my kids lol) and everyone comments on how lovely the names are. I only chose one though.
I think the ops example of Alfie is actually fine as an adult. I know a Charlie who's now in his 20s, lovely chap.
Disclaimer, only read the op! Sorry if post has moved on!

I do however know female (and male) beau's, which I'm not thsure greatest fan of for a grown up but it wouldn't make me judge the owner of the name, more the parent who chose it! But naming our kids is something we do, and people choose what they love, so if beau is what parents thinks baby looks like, food for them

OP why are you happy doing something that is unfair and ignorant? You are not recruiting the best candidates so letting your company down.

They say what goes round................

Eventually your lack of professionalism will be found out .

We all make judgements about people's names (whether we admit it or not) whether we think it's a bit too 'private school/new age/cutsey/religious/old-fashioned/middle aged/chav' etc. We all have bias against some names because of associations with a fictional character/celebrity/pet or person we didn't like...

Most people use a name they didn't get to choose. Some people's names suit them better than others (anyone ever met an extremely grumpy "Grace"?) maybe we need to acknowledge our personal bias and try to set it aside before using it to make an assumption about some one before we know them. What's in a name really?

Festivals, it's a methodology based on experience. I don't claim it's fool proof. And how can you possibly state I'm not getting the best candidates?

I think you will probably find that picking out CVs by name, will, give you a good field to choose from. I have no doubt that a Lucy is more likely to be better educated than a chrystal. That doesn't mean to say that every chrystal is uneducated, and every Lucy has a degree.

However I think it's morally wrong to do that.

PMSL at attempting to dress up snobbery as a methodology.

Unless you interview every qualified applicant then you can't say you're employing the best candidates either.