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Where/What is in a Name?

An Examination of Naming Trends among Immigrant Groups in the United States

For better or for worse, children often become projects of the wants and desires of their parents- whether this be in career choice, values, religion, or even something as trivial as which sports team a child roots for. From the time of conception, through childhood, for much of adolescence, and even into adulthood for some, many of the pivotal choices that shape who we are and our identity- are not our own. Perhaps one of the choices that affects us most on an everyday basis, is our name.

 

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A person’s name is often the first and only thing that we know about them. Think of all the times you have sent an email or been assigned to work with someone only knowing their name. With just someone’s name, you begin creating a mental picture of that person. This process usually begins with are they a male? Female? Perhaps their name doesn’t lend to either gender. But after this first initial assigning of gender, you would probably be filling in the characteristics surrounding a person’s ethnicity or race. If someone’s given name was something like “Sanjay” you’d begin assigning them features usually associated with a South Asian person. In choosing a culturally marked name, parents inadvertently set off a chain reaction for the rest of the child’s life. Whenever that child introduces themselves to others, their culture is placed at the forefront of their identity.

 

Naming is simultaneously one of the most personal decisions that parents make in their child’s life, while also being the most public. In choosing a culturally marked name, or following a cultural naming tradition, parents make a very deliberate choice to tie their child to their culture of origin.

 

But what happens when a person’s culture is perceived as a threat? When their name, and all the things associated with it, are an affront to the American way of life. As long as immigrants have existed in the United States, xenophobia and racism have long been scourges to the public mindset. Whether it be against the first wave of Irish immigrants to Ellis Island in the 1820s, or against the Latin American immigrant crossing the US-Mexico Border. Choosing to give a child an ethnically marked name, in a country so plagued with anti-immigrant sentiment, might be seen as setting up a child for racist attacks.

 

Apart from blatant racism, research also suggests that resumés from people with ethnic names are less likely to be called back for a job interview than names popular in the mainstream, and that choosing a name popular in the mainstream was strongly correlated with occupational success. This is not to say that all recruiters or employers are necessarily “racist,” however, it does suggest racial biases affect people in subtle ways. Choosing a name popular in the mainstream, even when paired with an ethnically marked last name, signifies to people that that person comes from a more assimilated background, and may be more in touch with American values. Especially in a post 2016 election world, the ways in which immigrant groups carry themselves and choose to assimilate are increasingly under scrutiny.

 

With all this in mind, why do so many immigrant parents still choose ethnically marked first names for their children?

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by Diana Raab as part of the Raab Writing Fellowship at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Thank you Diana Raab for your support and to my mentor for this project Prof. Madeleine Sorapure of the UCSB Writing Department, for her patience and guidance.

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