Works Cited
Abramitzky, Ran & Boustan, Leah. “Immigrants and cultural assimilation: Learning from the past.” VOX- Centre for Economic Policy Research. 4 July 2016. https://voxeu.org/article/immigrants-and-cultural-assimilation​
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The researchers created a “Foreignness Index” measuring how foreign a name sounds between zero (only natives of the United States hold the name) and one (only immigrants hold the name). The researchers found that the longer a person was in the United States, the less likely they were to name their child a foreign sounding name. This shift is associated with a greater desire to integrate into US society along with learning about US culture.
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Banerjee, Rupa, et al. “Do Large Employers Treat Racial Minorities More Fairly? A New Analysis of Canadian Field Experiment Data.” Robert F. Harney Professorship and Program in Ethnic, Immigration, and Pluralism Studies. 25 January 2017
Bisin, Alberto & Verdier, Thierry. “Beyond the Melting Pot: Cultural Transmission, Marriage, and the Evolution of Ethnic and Religious Traits.” Quartlery Journal of Economics. 955-988. 2000.
Erroneous previous research on immigrant assimilation suggested that immigrants “naturally assimilated in a melting pot process.” However, this theory did not take into the account the tendency of parents to want to disseminate their own beliefs and methods of socialization onto their children. For this reason, immigrants in heterogenous marriages (intermarriages) will have a more difficult time transmitting their culture to their children
Gerhads, Jürgen & Hans, Silke. “From Hasan to Herbert: Name-Giving Patterns of Immigrant Parents between Acculturation and Ethnic Maintenance.” American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 114, no. 4. 1102-1128. January 2009
The researchers used data from the SOEP to analyze trends in acculturation and the subsequent affect this has on the selection of first names amongst Turkish, Yugoslavic, and Russian immigrant groups in Germany. First names were chosen as a topic of study, because they indicate a deliberate choice towards either assimilation or maintenance of cultural identity amongst the parents. The researchers found that the level of cultural difference between the country of origin and Germany greatly affected the ability of immigrants to assimilate and this then led to less German sounding names being selected for their children. For example, while Yugoslavia and Russia share many cultural traits with Germany, Turkey does not, and therefore these immigrants were more likely to name their children Turkish rather than German names.
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Girma, Hewan. “Black Names, Imigrant Names: Navigating Race and Ethnicity Through Personal Names.” Journal of Black Studies. Vol. 51 (1) 16-36. 2020.
Girma examines the significance and process of naming in the Ethiopian immigrant community in the United States. Girma finds while selecting an Ethiopian name is a way of making sure their child lays claim to their Ethiopian heritage, many parents will sacrifice this cultural connection in order to assure easier acculturation for their child. Many Eithiopian parents also made sure not to sound names that were too “African American” sounding, because, while they phenotypically resembled African Americans, they wanted to distinguish themselves as not have the same ancestry rooted in slavery. Newer theories of “segmented assimilation” argue that assimilation is not as necessary as it was before due to the heterogeneous ethnic make up of the United States.
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Goldstein, Joshua and Stecklov, Guy. “From Patrick to John: Ethnic Names and Occupational Success in the Last Era of Mass Migration.” American Sociological Review. Vol. 81 (1) 85-106. 2015
The researchers sought to analyze the connection between economic success and assimilation amongst immigrant communities. To do this, the researchers examined male names pulled from IPUMs micro- samples of the US censuses of 1880 to 1930 and created an Ethnic Name Index (ENI), to compute the ethnic distinctiveness of names. The researchers concluded that overall cultural assimilation through naming, or choosing a name that is more popular in the mainstream, was strongly correlated to occupational achievement. Even with ethnically marked last names, American first names indicated to society that these immigrants had a desire to acculturate. However, the exception to this was in enclaves of Eastern European Jewish communities; in these communities it was advantageous for parents to confer ethnically marked names upon their children because of the popularity of entrepreneurship and self-employment in these groups.
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Obukhova, Elena, et al. “A Lack of Security or of Cultural Capital: Acculturative Conservatism in the Naming Choices of Early 20th Century US Jews.” Social Forces. Vol. 94 (4) 1509-1538. 2016
Members of immigrant communities are more likely to choose names that are “established” in American society and therefore may be considered old fashioned rather than names that are trendy. This does not necessarily indicate a lack of cultural capital, but rather shows a desire to be included in the mainstream. Names that are trendier are considered more of a cultural risk in immigrant communities and also deviate from general trends in immigrant communities towards cultural conservatism. Moreover, immigrants communities have deviated away from total assimilation into the mainstream society, in favor of selective acculturation practices that allow them to be knowledgeable about the society, while maintaining their cultural identity.