To think it’s very sad certain professions are denied to some children

[continuallychargingmyphone]

I just didn’t know when I joined MN that if your name is not suitably middle class you are forced into a life of servitude in Asda or Tesco. No being a high court judge for you.

Or, aibu to think people are ridiculous and call your baby what you like?

I haven't read the full thread but really things like this are a clear lesson in Correlation Does Not Equal Causation.

You should really read Freakonomics

There is a correlation between certain names and lower age of leaving education, lower exam rates and lower paid jobs, these things don't happen BECAUSE of the name, but rather they are ALL linked to people from a certain socio-economic background which is less likely to have access to good schools/higher education, more likely to need to work ASAP to help support the family and less likely to be from a background where education is prioritised.

Obviously there are always exceptions, but broadly speaking it's true. Sadly this has led to a mental bias in people's minds against certain names because they associate them with less educated people.

The only drawback with the name is that it flags the person as someone they can exclude to retain their class privilege.

I think that was OP's point.....

Weird isn't it. All these middle class people who would never tolerate discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, age or sexuality quite openly discriminating against people that they perceive are not up to the job because of their background or name .

Destinee-Honeybun isn't a stupid name. Middle-class people have decided it's a stupid name because, as a group, they are unlikely to use it. That doesn't mean it is

Bunkum. I'm not middle class and even if I was, there aren't meetings where people discuss these decisions. It is a very stupid name, you know it as well as I do.
The naiveity of these posts is laughable.

quite openly discriminating against people that they perceive are not up to the job because of their background or name

REally haven't grasped the point, have you?

But here, there is causation. Apparently, teachers' hearts sink when they hear a certain name which will then result in the child being discriminated against and it will produce bad behaviour in return when the child feels alienated and is justifiably angry. This has a knock-on effect when poor teaching (as deprived areas are statistically far less likely to have teachers qualified in their subject) meets the obvious lack of engagement the child will feel. There is nothing wrong with the name or the child, only the perception of it and the inevitable result.

I've never understood the issue with Connor. Nice name, surely

They correlate.

There are two causes to explain the correlation:

1. Family background linked to choosing the name.

And

1. Prejudice of others on hearing the name throughout childhood.

until he submitted identical applications to the same companies under an anglicised name.

What's so awful about it? ... You make things easier for employers if you want a job. Most people don't want to have to struggle with a difficult name.

Years ago I worked with someone called Shilpa. An easy to spell and say name. However she told me she didn't get an interview despite her excellent CV until she applied for a job where she'd be working for someone from India. And this was academia where the employees are pretty multinational.

OP if you are seriously considering adopting in this country it won't be the child's name that holds them back, it will the abuse and/or neglect they've experienced up to when they're taken into the care system.

Is it just me or is @continuallychargingmyphone a little bit illiterate? Your posts are poorly written, you seem to be lacking a common understanding of daily prejudices experienced by many people (think of those with Muslim or non European cultural names, this is what they have to live through everyday despite being often born in Europe).

Has it really taken you to this point in your adult life to be aware of prejudice? And now you are bemoaning it? Seriously??

Personally I'd love to be called Tinkerbelle.

I used to work with a Tinkerbelle, she went by Tink.

Years ago I worked with someone called Shilpa. An easy to spell and say name. However she told me she didn't get an interview despite her excellent CV until she applied for a job where she'd be working for someone from India.

Having foreign names doesn't seem to stop the enormous amount of people without typical white middle class names employed as doctors and consultants in the NHS.

Qualifications count for far more than your name. I wonder how many "Fifi's" have straight A grades in their GCSE and A Levels compared with how many Abdul's?

Also, I've noticed that Chinese ladies tend to give themselves twee English nicknames like Felicity.

DD went to a school with lots of Chinese boarders who chose an English name before arriving. One girl’s older sister, who was already at the school, persuaded her sibling that “Yuki” was a traditional English name.

Also, I've noticed that Chinese ladies tend to give themselves twee English nicknames like Felicity.

Parents give a western name as well as a chinese one- there are companies and websites that help- it is big business. So not the ladies but their parents.

Lawyer here too. In my last place we had a receptionist job going and someone applied who's name was 'Bliss'. Everyone thought it was hysterically funny but said there was NO WAY she could be employed because it wasn't good for our image. (Not sure why, we are a small provincial firm....hardly corporate high flyers).

Bliss was employed in the end and she was brilliant. But I found it very off in the extreme that a bunch of employment lawyers were responding like that to a person's name.

My cat is called Yuki, after Yuki Nagato

I had a an application from someone called sunny-Dee light once, it was hard to take seriously to be fair

This is going back a long way 8n the discussion, but OP I think you are missing the spelling point. You wrote
And I don’t think Jayden, Kai, Maisie and Kacie are hard to spell
Well, no, those spellings are easy - except they aren’t the only one, are they?
Jayden
Jaydyn
Jaiden
Jaydin

Kai,
Ki
Cai
Kye

Maisie - we’ll, I’ll give you that as the most likely spelling. But what about Maisi? Maysi?

Kacie
Kasey
Casie
Kasie
Kaysee

Loads of potential.
More traditional names have an obvious spelling which prevents constant asking/misspelling.

I just gave mine traditional sensible names to be on the safe side, I'm wc not mc.

Is there any correlation between the age of the mother and the naming of the child?
Could it be that a 16-year old's taste might be quite different to a 29-yr old or a 39-yr old?

It plays a significant role I think.
I have a friend who had her first child at 17, and the last at 35.
The eldest has a name which sounds like a cross between a hippy's pet dog and a tropical illness.
The youngest is called James.

This may even be a cross issue with class, as I don't know any MC couples with a pregnant teenager. Not saying it doesn't happen, but MC teenagers aren't having babies at anywhere near the rate that WC teens do.
And 16 year old girls are arguably more likely to see the appeal of yooneek names than fully grown adults.

It is ridiculous. And snobby. And nasty.

It is all those things. But there is plenty of academic evidence that having a name either associated with an ethnic minority (interestingly it doesn’t matter which) or a lower socioeconomic class means you are much less likely to be called for interview than someone with a name that is ‘white’ and more associated with being middle class, who has the same qualifications.

There are also less academic studies of names that teachers associate with being ‘naughty’ and ‘well-behaved’, which also tended to split down the lines of names popularly associated with certain classes, implying that teacher may bring unconscious bias to the classroom as well.

So it’s a choice for parents what they want to do in a world where that bias currently exists.

Decent workplaces are putting in place blind recruitment to combat this. There is no reason to know the name, age, sex or ethnic background of a job applicant. The only one of those that changes before interview is that it’s polite to know their name.

What's caused you to be so upset op? Obviously it's hit a nerve with you. Is it your name or one of your children's names you think is perceived as not middle class?

There are also less academic studies of names that teachers associate with being ‘naughty’ and ‘well-behaved’, which also tended to split down the lines of names popularly associated with certain classes, implying that teacher may bring unconscious bias to the classroom as well

Correlation is not causation. It's entirely possible that children with those names actually do tend to be naughty. You can't possibly say in which direction the causation is working should there be one.

Making assumptions is not always unfair and mean/nasty/etc. Because the thing is, when someone looks at a name of the type being talked about here, and thinks "bet they didn't go to Oxford/are highly educated/come from money/whatever", the chances very much are they are correct. And actually, therein lies the real problem that we should care about.

Here's some names.
Doug, Shu, Fu, Wang, Ben, Akio, Herbert , Bob, Darren, Warren.
They are the CEO's of the top10 Global companies by revenue.

Here's some more.
Tim, Jeff, Sundar, Satya, Mark, Daniel, Ma, Moon, Robert, Chuck.
CEO's of the biggest technology companies globally.

Do ya think Chuck and Herbert's parents thought about their precious poppetts one day being CEO's of the some of the biggest companies in the world. I wonder how Sundar and Satya came across in the US?

More of note is that there is not one female name amongst those 20. No Catherines or Elizabeths, or Sharon or Tracey's......

This is bigger than names, way bigger. I mean. Chuck.

A list of worldwide CEO names does not reflect UK cultural perceptions. Those names are likely to be perceived very differently in the various different countries that they grew up in than they would growing up in the UK.
You're right that the lack of women is worldwide. That doesn't stop names also having an influence.

One of the names mentioned as a naughty boy name (Conor) in the UK is seen as a traditional middle class name in the country of its origin - Ireland. Growing up called Conor in the two different countries would be a different experience with one receiving prejudice from people such as teachers and one boy not. The UK Conor would be more likely to be born into a less affluent family. The Irish Conor would be more likely to end up doing a traditional middle class job than the UK Conor would.