Names

First Names

• "The “name game”: affective and hiring reactions to first names,"John L. Cotton, Bonnie S. O’Neill and Andrea Griffin, Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23 pp. 18-39 (2008)

"Common names were seen as least unique, best liked, and most likely to be hired. Unusual names were seen as most unique, least liked, and least likely to be hired. Russian and African-American names were intermediate in terms of uniqueness, likeability and being hired, significantly different from Common and Unique names, but not significantly different from each other"

"Fryer and Levitt’s (2004) data indicates that not only are these names distinctively African-American, but that among those born in the last two decades, “a distinctly Black name is now a much stronger predictor of socioeconomic status” (p. 801). This study found that African-sounding names tend to be more common among lower-class African-Americans. So names can imply not only race, but also economic class. However, in looking at life outcomes, Fryer and Levitt (2004) found that distinctly African-American names are unrelated to the life outcomes, after including controls for education, education of parents, age of mother, marital status of mother, and other factors. "

"Bertrand and Mullainathan (2003) examined how names influence callbacks for job interviews. These authors sent out resume´s with a variety of African-American and Caucasian-sounding names. Their results indicated that resume´s with African-sounding names received fewer callbacks than the Caucasian names. In addition, a higher-quality resume´ elicited more callbacks with Caucasian names, but the greater quality had no impact on callbacks when paired with an African-American name. This research was repeated and publicized in a 20/20 segment on ABC, where they posted 22 pairs of names with identical resume´s on prominent job websites and found that Caucasian names received more attention than African-American sounding names (Ruppel, 2004)."

"Bertrand and Mullainathan’s (2003) study from labor economics examined job-hiring behavior, but it was not clear whether the effects were entirely due to race. For example, some of the Caucasian names used were Emily, Allison, Kristen, Brendan, Geoffrey, and Brett. Many of these names are not only Caucasian, they also tend to be perceived as above average in success (Mehrabian, 1990). It is possible that the names employed varied not just on race, but also on perceptions of familiarity, socioeconomic status, or other characteristics (Fryer and Levitt, 2004). For example, the African-American names (Latoya, Ebony, and Tremayne) are more unique than the Caucasian names (Jill, Anne, Greg)."

Bertrand, M. and Mullainathan, S. (2003), “Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination”, NBER Working Paper No. 9873, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.

Fryer, R. and Levitt, S. (2004), “The causes and consequences of distinctively black names”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 119 No. 3, pp. 767-805.

Place Names

• Professor Eugene Volokh says of Kiev:

• • "In Russian, it's pronounced more or less "Kiev" ("Kee-ehv"), and written in a way that would normally be transliterated "Kiev" in English.
  • In Ukrainian, it's pronounced more or less "Kyiv" (with the "y" sounding like the "y" in "crypt," though further back in the mouth), and written in a way that would normally be transliterated "Kyiv" in English.
  • But in English, it has historically been pronounced more or less "Kiev," and written "Kiev," doubtless because it was borrowed into English from Russian.
  • After all, in English we have our own names for many foreign places. We write and say "Moscow" and not "Moskva," "Russia" and not "Rossiya," "Ukraine" and not "Ookraina," "Florence" and not "Firenze," "Spain" and not "España." Indeed, sometimes our names are far indeed from the original: "Germany" and not "Deutschland," "Albania" and not "Shqiperia," "Georgia" and not "Sakartvelo."

I'd say the same about Turkey, which is the English name for the country that calls itself "Türkiye"—just as "İngiltere" is apparently the Turkish name for the country that calls itself "England." I don't think anyone should expect the Turks to change to saying England; why should we expect English speakers to change to saying "Türkiye"? (Greece, by the way, is apparently "Yunanistan" in Turkish, and "Ellada" or "Ellas" in Greek; again, I don't think either Turkish or English or Greek speakers need to change how they pronounce things.)"