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Key points
- Hard to pronounce or unusual names can present difficulties socially and professionally.
- Processing fluency can explain some of these negative effects.
- New tools and practices can help with proper pronunciation.
When I was in high school, I took a psychology class. While the teacher was animated and interesting, there was one big problem: He could never pronounce my name right. Every time he took role, he called out “Valeria,” rhyming with malaria, instead of my actual name, Valerie.
Did I correct him? Sure, many times, but he claimed he once had a student named Valeria and it just keep popping in his head instead of my actual name. I gave up and became Valeria for the semester.
For many with names that sound ethnic or foreign, though, this is not a one semester problem. Having their name mispronounced is an issue they encounter at school, at work and, as evidenced by Republican versions of Kamala Harris’ first name, in politics.
Who's Camilla?
Kamala Harris pronounces her name like “comma-la,” but, as has been widely reported, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly mispronounced Harris’s name as “ka-MA-la” and even “Camilla.” While Trump and several other Republicans have provided the most public and recent examples of using a name as a way to draw attention to or problematize ethnic identity, the practice is certainly nothing new.
Names are often given by parents to their children for the express purpose of maintaining an important link to ethnic, religious or cultural heritage. Names like Cillian or Saoirse, for example, have strong ties to Irish culture. But the difficulty comes in when a name increases the visibility of a contested heritage or one marginalized by the dominant culture, i.e., Kamala as a Sanskrit derived name common in India.
The power of a name
But the problem for those with uncommon and ethnic sounding names is not only one of mispronunciation. The bigger issue is that research finds that names that are recognizably linked with minority groups are often used to devalue those with ethnic identity or are used as a shortcut to determine that someone lacks the appropriate cultural “fit.”
This is especially true in workplace contexts. A widely publicized research paper discovered that those with Western or White sounding names on their resumes are fifty percent more likely to be called back for a job interview and another study found that so called “whitening” one’s resume, such as adopting a whiter sounding name, led to more interest from employers.
Other research suggests that some of these negative reactions to hard to pronounce names may be a matter of processing fluency – or the sense of ease or difficulty we experience when performing a mental task – rather than bias alone.
When we encounter a new accent or a more complex or hard to pronounce word, it takes more mental effort to process it, and this extra brain effort is misconstrued as something unpleasant and as a problem with the person with the name as opposed to simply a more challenging mental processing experience.
The good news is that cognitive fluency, meaning the sense of mental ease, increases as people become more familiar with new accents, spellings or pronunciations – and this increased ease can translate into more favorable associations, though it can’t attenuate responses related to attitudinal rather than processing factors.
A new name frontier
The AI revolution might be able to offer some solutions for at least part of the problem faced by those with less common names. Several new tech tools have become available to help guide teachers, employers and whoever else on proper name pronunciation.
For instance, Namecoach is a cloud-based application that embeds audio pronunciation assistance directly by names on things like class rosters or employee and client lists and also offers an opportunity for people to self-record pronunciations. NameShouts, another online pronunciation tool, uses search engines to locate proper pronunciations by language.
But there are some simple less tech-y ways to help make sure names are pronounced correctly. If encountering a name that you can’t pronounce, politely asking for guidance is a virtue, not a vice. After getting the pronunciation down with a bit of practice, make yourself a phonetic note for later so you can remind yourself the right way to say it.
Similarly, if you have a name that is often mispronounced, putting a phonetic pronunciation beside your name on zoom or on emails can save you from some of the fatigue of having to correct others repeatedly.
The bottom line is being willing to put in a little time and effort can go a long way in making those with less familiar names feel more valued and that makes schools, workplaces and, yes, even political podiums better for everyone.
References
Bertrand, M., & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Are emily and greg more employable than lakisha and jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. The American Economic Review, 94(4), 991-1013
Kang SK, DeCelles KA, Tilcsik A, Jun S. (2016). Whitened résumés: race and self-presentation in the labor market. Adm Sci Q. 61(3), 469–502.
Oppenheimer DM. (2008) The secret life of fluency. Trends Cogn Sci. 12(6), 237-41.
