What's in a Name?

Written by Merlene Emerson and published in OBV Blog http://operationblackvote.wordpress.com/ at its launch on Thu 16th Jul 2009

Just as some with Jewish or Germanic names had chosen to anglicise theirs in the last century, many of us have taken on names that help us fit in. I was happy to adopt my husband's name when I married, but only to find out later that 'Emerson' was an invention of my husband's great grandfather who was himself born an 'Engelmann'!

There are of course those who have consciously chosen to stand out, such as British playwright Kwame Kwei Armah (born Ian Roberts). His was to make a statement that he was proud of his African roots. With an ancestral name that means "One most ancient, born on a Saturday, with wisdom to find a way", there is an argument for choosing it over that of a former master.

More surprising however was a recent report that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has taken a keen interest in the subject of names. In a curious social experiment, DWP sent out bogus CVs in response to a thousand job vacancies. In each case they sent out one with a British White sounding name and another with identical qualifications but bearing a more ethnic sounding name.

As one might have guessed, the imaginary white applicants had significantly greater success than their imaginary non-white counterparts and were offered interviews where the latter hadn't.

The analysis of this research is still on-going but we have certainly been given a sense that race discrimination is alive and well despite the Race Relations Act and that it starts even before the job has been offered.

Just as job applicants are now not required to state their age and marital status, would the solution be to require applicants not have to state something as basic as their names?

Yet one's name is something that goes to one's sense of identity and belonging and it may seem ludicrous to legislate on names. A name and the spelling of the name can tell us so much about one's origin and even dialect group.

In the case of Chinese names, where I see the name Ooi I would guess that the person would be likely to be Chinese of Hokkien dialect from SE Asia, whereas were he or she originally from Hongkong or China, they would have been named Wong (Cantonese) or Huang (Mandarin), all using the same Chinese character meaning 'yellow'.

The same can be said of African and Asian names and in addition to belying the origin of the named person, would often also hint at their or their parents' religion.

However in the age of the internet, it may be more of an advantage in fact not to have a name that is the same or too similar to others. Just try googling 'John Smith' or even 'Ian Roberts' for example (as opposed to say 'Kwame Kwei Armah'?)

There are some advantages in having a more ethnic sounding or unusual name in the UK. But as they say, what's in a name; a rose by any other name would smell as sweet? Not necessarily which is why we will need to keep an eye out for the final DWP report.

If indeed those with ethnic sounding names are not even getting past the first hurdle of being selected for an interview then we may need to require employers to make applications anonymous in the first round.

Perhaps one day we will be better recognised by ID numbers instead of by names, though I am far from advocating that!