Norma Sofia Marsano, had always been a Norma but decided to go
by her middle name when she left Kentucky to attend college in Michigan.
"I felt that Norma held me back. Sofia sounds fun and cute, whereas Norma
sounds like an ugly-girl's name. I liked myself more when I started going
by Sofia."
A name change may influence how we perceive ourselves and others
because of racial, class or geographical stereotypes. Our "Anastasia"
file may include adjectives like attractive, graceful and vaguely
Slavic—descriptors that fit our conception of a ballerina but not a
Bertha.
Author Bruce Lansky has capitalized on these implicit associations
with The Baby Name Survey Book: What People Think About Your Baby's Name.
Lansky compiled 100,000 impressions of 1,700 names, promising to help
parents pick a name with positive connotations. Readers learn that Vanna
is considered dumb, Jacqueline is elegant and Jacob, the number-one baby
name for boys, is "a highly religious man who is old-fashioned and
quiet."
Lansky's "namesakes" (Vanna White, Jackie O., Jacob in the Old
Testament) are achingly transparent. And such associations hold only
until we meet another Vanna, according to psychologist Kenneth Steele,
who found that a name attached to a "real" person, or even a photograph,
will transcend stereotypes. Steele exposed a group of subjects to a set
of names previously judged to be socially desirable (Jon, Joshua,
Gregory) or undesirable (Oswald, Myron, Reginald). A second group of
subjects viewed these names accompanied by photographs. The addition of
the photos erased the good or bad impression left by the name
alone.
To what degree, then, does a name elicit racial or ethnic bias?
Marianne Bertrand, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago,
created resumes with names that are considered conspicuously white (such
as Brendan) or black (such as Jamal) and found that regardless of
credentials, resumes with white-sounding names generated twice as many
callbacks. But this doesn't mean that conspicuously "black" names, like
Lashonda or Tremayne, are themselves liabilities: The employers in
Bertrand's study might have discriminated against a black applicant
regardless of his name. Roland Fryer, a professor of economics at Harvard
University found that a black Molly and a black Lakeisha with similar
socioeconomic backgrounds fared equally well.
Whether people swoon over—or even disdain—our name is beyond our
control. Ultimately, self-esteem and the esteem of the world dictate the
degree to which we hold our name dear. Like our vocation or hometown, we
tout our name as a distinguishing mark if it "fits." If it doesn't, we
might say that, like an inaccurate horoscope, we don't believe in that
stuff anyway. We'll change our name, disregard it or consider it just a
synonym for me.
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