Names and Careers

[Glindathegoodwitch]

I often read on here & see people commenting on the posts along the lines of

'He/She would never get taken seriously in the professional world'
'Imagine Dr Such and such name'
'Imagine going for a job interview with that name'

Are people genuinely serious when posting this? Or is it just a jibe they feel that they can use at a name they don't personally like?

If I were in a position to interview somebody, which I have been in the past, it wouldn't even be on my radar to take their name into consideration. I mean, I may raise an eyebrow at a name, pull a face (in my head) at a name or more than likely it would intrigue me. But never in a million years would I stop a clearly capable person or perfect candidate for a job on the basis of their name that they didn't choose for themselves? A name doesn't define character or capability surely?

And if Dr Princess Consuela Bananahammock wanted to save my life or someone close to me's life by performing open heart surgery, I wouldn't say 'Sorry. No, I just cant take you and your name seriously!'

In equal measure, I would not name a child 'Richard', 'Bill' or 'Alan' presuming that will mean they will become a multi billionaire entrepreneur....

I just want to know if people genuinely believe what they are saying???

specialsubject

I saw a diplomat on TV once who's last name was "Makepeace"

Nothing wrong with hyphenation my DDs name is, it's just the (imo silly) names before and after the hyphen I'm talking about.

I can't see what's wrong with Lilly-Mae or Gracie-rose. I don't really personally like to hyphen but I don't think it's worth getting judgey about.

Many people have told me poppy is cutesy and I've limited her life chances

I'll have to name change after this bu my sister is called Kaylee, spelt like that. She's a doctor. My friends daughter is called Jayde - she just got a number of As and A stars at gcse and will no doubt get a good job. Urethra is spouting bs.

Uretha ...

Just because there are exceptions to the rule, it doesn't mean Urethra is wrong

It seems that people are struggling to understand that Urethra isn't giving her opinion. She's putting forward population data, and personal experience or anecdote doesn't counteract that.

Unusual names tend to be selected by socio-economic extremes. People in the upper classes with odd names will likely do well regardless,as they still have lots of opportunities based on wealth or privilege offered to them.

People in lower socioeconomic classes who are given unusual names will often struggle - not because of their name but because parents who choose youneeq spellings tend to be in socioeconomic situations that offer fewer opportunities

Middle class parents are more likely to choose 'middle class' names

This article is interesting
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26634477
Especially the Oxbridge stats. It does seem that children given greater opportunities, in general tend to have more classic names

Whilst I'm not arguing there's not a significant statistical relationship there, I think it's worth acknowledging that there are (in general terms) serious methodological questions to be raised about the freakonomics project. Yeah, of course population data is miles better than anecdote. But statistics are very, very rarely 'objective truth' as claimed up thread, either.

(Disclaimer: I am a sort-of-statistician. This may mean I have an axe to grind, but hopefully I'm not grinding it in an entirely uninformed way.)

There's a lot more to it then just freakonomics. But simple common sense and logic helps.

The "I've got an unusual name and a PhD" is like "my nan smoked a hundred a day and lived to 123". Smoking still causes cancer. And I bet none of the anecdotes involve anyone called Cupcake.....

Urethra is bang on.

There is slit of snobbery and eyebrow raising about names but I do wonder is the Lillie-Mai's and Gracie-Jane's of today will simply be the Donna's and Kirsty's of thirty years time. The names are a socio economic market but not really a hinderence to career . Skypod and Urskin are not going to be effected as they clearly were born to money anyway .
I do think that names in this country are becoming more and more americanised and multinational and this will actually create a more level playing field in the future.

Just read that back and there are so many mistakes I can't be arsed to correct them all. It's been a long week, sorry

Coming from the kind of background uretha is talking about (but luckily with a fairly boring name) I completely see it as true in my actual life and not just in research (there is so much to back it up). My family think I'm a snob for giving the DCs classic m/c names but I really do see that judgement all the time, this week alone at work a kaytee and Jayde were remarked upon. I do think flower names are the Tracey/Kirsty/Stacey of this generation.

Those of you saying that it's absolute nonsense that a name can affect a child's future career prospects, do you actually not scoff or silently judge when in the school yard or park or wherever, when a parent calls out "time to go home Foo-Foo Candida (or Britney or Beyoncé)"?

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?

Here, the implication is that these children would have been given better opportunities simply by their parents naming them more 'neutrally'. This does mean that these clues of background need to be invisible otherwise (eg once a candidate is through to interview, a black man is a black man whether his name is Matthew or Tyrese.) If this is true, shouldn't we be fighting against it by deliberately giving all of our children ambiguous names and making this sort of practice impossible - in conjunction with fighting against the underlying discrimination? Also, presumably the same effect can be had simply by giving a child a female name, in most circumstances?

• 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.

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.

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.

Uretha is correct.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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)