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THE NAME GAME
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In America there is a quiet discriminator alive, well, and growing in our society. This is not a discriminator of race, sex, or ethnicity. It’s a discriminator of names. When a newborn child receives a name this is something which will follow him or her [almost always] forever.
Some names are pretty easy to handle such as John or Lucy, but that’s not where names end. No, unfortunately parents in this land have been saddling their kids with horrible names such as La’Tania or De’Staibi’ and so on. On the surface it doesn’t seem such a bad thing, but as time goes on the myriad of ‘stupid’ names parents saddle their kids with leave them open to derision and ridicule. In turn such ‘ghetto’ names as LeDante can mark a child into early adulthood when finding that critical even career launching job is concerned.
I spoke with David Marriana, a Human Resources Officer with a major recruitment firm and what he had to say is sobering. It seems that, as employers plough through reams of applications, one of the first ‘toss it – shred it’ criteria is often the name. A resume’ beginning with the name LaKenya has a far greater chance of being tossed into the shredder than if it had begun with the name Kerri.
So what is it that causes HR personnel to toss the ‘stupid name’ applications into the shredder? According to David, “When we look deeper into the job application of someone with a ‘ghetto’ name it almost invariably shows us an inferior and markedly less qualified candidate. For reasons of upbringing, culture, and just plain experience on our parts it has been to our benefit to toss those applications with names clearly not from the ‘bread and butter’ class of applicant.”
It’s true. A boy named Kirill has a significantly lower chance of succeeding financially or even academically than one named Kevin.
In small business this is an acute separator of those applicants who will be called in for personal interview and those who won’t. Yet, as acute as it is in small businesses it’s even more so in major corporations and fortune 500 companies. In these larger firms HR is an expensive part of running the company. HR people are often ‘up to their eyeballs in applications’ and look for the quickest, easiest, separator. Open an application from a girl named Ta’Mia and ‘zoom’ it goes into the shredder. Open the next one from a girl named Gloria and ‘whoosh’ it goes into the ‘review further’ pile.
Although odd names have been a part of the American landscape for generations, these have increased exponentially since the 1970’s, a time when most folks had it pretty good economically and could not or would not foresee the burden or blessing a name can give their kid.
In countries such as France and Canada, bureaus of name approval have helped to separate a number of these ‘destructive’ names from use by simply disapproving names such as ‘Moon Landing’ or ‘Salt & Pepper’. Recently in Quebec, Canada a child’s potential name of ‘Chien’ which means ‘Dog’ was disallowed. Much to the potential salvation of a child’s future this ‘bureau of names’ has done much to level the playing field between bad parents and bad names.
As we trudge slowly into the 21st Century we need to ask ourselves if a ‘Bureau of Names’ isn’t such a bad idea here in the United States.
Although a name is just a name, it can also be a burden to live with ranging from the simple ‘Excuse me, how do you pronounce your name?” to the “What in Hell kind of name is that? You’re joking, right?” In defence of a parent’s right to name their child, shouldn’t there be a limit as to just how far they can go?
● Food for thought ●
I’m Max, and that’s the way I see it!
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