Yes, I believe Romney’s christian name actually is Mitthead.
Kidding.
Odd, I read a study that showed just the opposite. Resumes with identical skills/education/experience were sent into employers, one had a typical caucasian name like Judy the other something typically AA like Laquinisha. Overwhelmingly, the “Judy’s” were called in for interviews. The “Laquinishas”? Not so much.
You’d think that parents would want to give their child the best possible chance at sucess in life. :rolleyes:
Whenever I have to hire someone I always make sure I do not see their names until I have finished evaluating their resumes. Whether I get the resumes from an employment agency or a job site, I don’t want to inadvertently create a bias. Of course, when the education lists a university in Bangalore then I might have a clue as to the ethnicity of the applicant.
I think the idea is the sort of parents who’d give a name like that to a child are likely to be of a low socio-economic strata. So their kids are more likely to have no college experience and have gone to a cruddy high school. Bearing that in mind they tend to have the same prospects as others in their situation. If Tyrell and Barry both have a high school diploma, no college, and a year of work experience at burger king, neither one is going to have a resume that excites.
Now like you say, if you were taking applicants that had reasonable qualifications, maybe the names would make a difference, I dunno.
I should note, I’m not saying that people with a weird sounding ethnic name are stupid or anything, I’m saying from what I’ve read, a lot of them grew up disadvantaged and as such it doesn’t matter what their named. It’s so hard to break the cycle of poverty that their chances are very slim.
Yes, I see you’re kidding. But for the record, his given name is Willard
Also, this is a claim that has been debunked repeatedly on this board.
What is the possibility we might think this a joke?
:dubious:
From here :
For the record, it’s “Mitteequ’a”
Does that mean he’s “blacker” than Bill Clinton?
Well, my point is that the study I read shows that they don’t have the same prospects due to discrimination/racism based on their names alone.
I guess I just don’t understand why the parents are saddling their kids with names that will actively prevent them for achieving all they can in life. Racism is still an ugly reality in this day and age. Until it is eradicated, these kids WILL suffer discrimination and lessened chances of being judged for the abilities, solely because their mothers named them 'Ja’laquisha or Queenlatisha or whatever. If I were a black mom, the very least (and easiest) thing I would do for my child would be to give them a name that won’t hurt their chances at sucess.
anastasia is a girls name, anastasios is the boy’s version meaning “of the resurrection” in greek. i sing it a ton of times during the pascal season. not to mention the innumberable greetings. they are hugely popular names esp. if the tyklet is born on a sunday.
resurecta could be a girl’s name if you wanted to go with it in latin. i guess everyone thought the greek version was prettier.
Yeah, parents want to give their kids the best show at success in life. But, the people doing the hiring are making their decisions based on racism.
Maybe some are tribal, maybe some aren’t. What’s it matter? Parents are allowed to name their kids whatever they want for whatever reason they want. What do their “ridiculous” names have to do with you? Did you make up diggleblop? Anyone giving you a hard time about it? You’re allowed to call yourself that, and you don’t owe any of us a “good” reason for your own creativity.
I hope this one isn’t keeping you up at night. :eek:
Isn’t “Shithead” from the movie “Alien Nation”?
When Detective Sykes makes fun of his partner’s name, Sam Francisco, the partner points out that Sykes resembles two syllables in the alien language that mean “excrement” and “cranium”—Shithead.
\I’m not convinced that it has anything to do with racism. As noted before, these types of names tend to come from lower class people. They are the equivalent of a white guy being named Cleetus or Billy Bob. If I’m a plant manager or the equivilent, and I get a generic “just graduated highschool” type resume, I’m taking a Jamal over a Te’Shawn.
Similarly, I once read about a study that had teachers marking essays that had randomly been attributed to students with either a “normal” name or an “unusual” name. Overwhelmingly, the essays received higher marks if they were attributed to a “normal” name, though unusual feminine names weren’t graded as harshly as unusual male names. The study didn’t draw conclusions on racial lines and I don’t know if the unusual names they used were stereotypical of particular races, but they made the point that certain names are associated with certain traits - Bertha, for instance, is associated with obesity. According to the study, unusual names or oddly-spelt names are associated with lower intelligence.
While I was in high school a teacher told me he could make a good guess at the personality of new students without meeting them, based only on their names. He said the names people chose for their children often gave a good insight into their own personalities, and the children they raised reflected the values and attitudes of the parents.
I’m sure the names Travis, Thomas and William may sound pretty ridiculous in some cultures. Why do you care?
By the way, Anastasia is fairly popular baby name in this country. (Among the top 100 baby names according the U.S. census.)
You would make a choice on who to hire based on someone’s name? That’s the make or break deal for you? Wow…
Mormons? How about ordinary white folks, who in so many cases have simply abandoned first names entirely, and just given their kids last names as first names? Or states? Madison. Jackson. Mackenzie, for the love of Christ.
Like I said, we are talking about a generic high school type resume. Absent any other factors, then yes, I’ll judge someone on there name. Because, let’s be honest here, a MIT professor and his wife of 20 years aren’t naming their kid “Shalawnday”. The people that name their kid “Shalawnday” are young, likely uneducated, likely poor, and likely having the kid with their baby’s daddy.
I am not the person you are quoting but yes, that is a simple fact of life. Everyone, including you, judges all people, all the time according to their learned criteria. The alternative is for the plant manager to take every single remotely qualified applicant for a weekend get-a-way to get to know them all better before making such a crucial decision. It doesn’t work that way in real life. We all have limited time and resources so we play the odds based on our experience whether it is an anonymous stack of resumes seeking to fill a quick, unskilled need or a dating website.
I review piles of resumes all the time. I don’t have any one criterion that would cause someone to land instantly into the trash pile but there are lots of them like a name that could tip the edge. They could all be outstanding employees and people for all I know but we don’t have time to over analyze the situation so I just go by feel. It isn’t random. My coworkers who comprise both sexes easily and several races can sort a pile of resumes independently with almost equal results based on these types of subjective criteria.
I’m not sure he was saying WTF at Anastasia as a name so much as its placing (and possibly likening to "tribal names’ when it’s obviously not). Though I can’t be sure of that, considering how the list and the followup make it ambiguous but i’d have to guess the “no joke” was just that it was so out of place rather than anastasia being an odd name in itself.
I don’t think it MATTERS, I think he’s CURIOUS. And comparing real names to pseudonyms is a little off. I know there was that one couple who tried to name their kid 4real, but as a general rule making up internet pseudonyms and making up names are different. And the latter has potential (not always, but potential) to end up sounding a little funny or off. He’s just wondering why this particular subculture (it’s not blacks in general, it jsut seems to be a subculture that does this mainly seems to have names sounding odd (and similar enough to raise suspicion that there MAY be more to it).
I know a mormom family with a Zinah (pronounced with a long ‘i’, not like Xena warrior princess), Dere’lyn (or something spelled similarily), Nicolette (not that out there really), and Bob, and Fred. So yeah,s ome odd names (but I like the names). Then again i also know a mormon family with a Jesse and a mormon family (yes there happens to be a mormon community around here) with a Stacey and a Kim, so… that kinda breaks the combo.