Whats In A Name?
Can something as simple as a name affect our future? Following my research as a part of my 15 days of economics program I am going to be sharing what I found most interesting and try to answer the question can names really affect our future?
According to studies by New York University and Marquette University people with common and easy to pronounce names are more likely to to be hired and hold higher positions in the workplace. At first this sounded ridiculous, why would somebody lose out on a job because of their name? However as I’ve thought about it I’ve realised that I may have experienced this in my life not because of my name but because of my upbringing. My school requires an interview for entry and it made me think that I can’t name a single student in my school who’s name is hard to pronounce. Following that I have come to the conclusion that no, it is not the name that matters it’s the environment in which people who go to my school are brought up in. I believe that it is not the name that affects these studies results but instead the people hiring and promoting unconsciously racially stereotyping, something that is particularly relevant now with the rise of the black lives matter movement.
Studies have shown that there is a growing gap in the similarity of white and black names. Black parents are continuously naming their children more uniquely than white parents who tend to be sticking to cultural norms such as Jake or Ryan. It is in fact due to a combination of this unconscious stereotyping and class division that the statistics show simple names lead to greater success. As a result of racial inequality it far more likely that a black child will grow up in a more disadvantageous and hostile environment than a white child hence why statistics show those with names like Tyrone are more to get arrested than those with names like Jake. The same applies to hiring, a hirer who is not considered racist by himself and those close to him may receive two identical cv’s one from Tyrone and one from Jake, the hirer may unconsciously favour the name Jake because he unknowingly assumes that Jake had a better upbringing and will be a better worker. These are the sorts of inequalities that the black lives matter movement hopes to eradicate.
In conclusion I do believe that a name can affect our future but not because of it’s ease of pronunciation, because of the racial stereotypes that certain names have become associated with over the years.
