Trevor Blake, posting at American Samizdat spots this piece of research from the University of Florida, which appears to show that children with ‘African-American-sounding’ names do less well at school:
A new study suggests that black students with exotic names don’t do as well in school as black students with more common names. The University of Florida study found that students with names such as Da’Quan or Damarcus are more likely to score lower on reading and math tests. Researchers said that black students with unusual names are also less likely to meet teacher expectations and be referred to gifted programs than black students with more common names, such as Dwayne.
[…]
University of Florida economist David] Figlio said boys and girls with exotic names suffer in terms of the quality of attention and instruction they get in the classroom because teachers expect less from children with names that sound like they were given by parents with lower education levels. He said the lower expectations often become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[…]
Figlio found that poorly educated black women overwhelmingly gave their children names that begin with certain prefixes, such as “lo,” “ta” and “qua,” and certain suffixes, such as “isha” and “ious.”
Comparing pairs of siblings, Figlio found that teachers treated the children differently – depending on the name. A boy named Damarcus, for example, was 2 percent less likely than his brother Dwayne to be referred to a gifted program, even with identical test scores, Figlio said.
[…]Figlio found opposite results for children with Asian names. Students with Asian-sounding names were more likely to be recommended for gifted programs than siblings with common American names and similar test scores, he said.
I very deliberately gave my children, both boys and both now adults, sensible names, despite much pressure from my then sisters-in-law, who are themselves African American. I did this for very much the reasons outlined in the research. People should’t make judgements – but they do, and the judgement that is made about someone with an obviously confected name is that their family are idiots. You may as well stick a big sign on your head saying ‘My mum is a pretentious moron, treat me like one too’.
This is so regardless of race (check out the Utah Baby Namer for confirmation; there’s no weird name quite like a Mormon weird name, how about Ahmre Jade or Tiphany or even Vyquetoriya Walkasheaqua? Check it out, they’re real names.). But, and this is very important, it’s exacerbated by names that clearly identify a person’s race. Sod self-expression and African pride, they’re not enough reason for saddling your child with a handicap that will allow people to identify them by race and enable them to be discriminated against more easily.
No responsible parent should put their own needs for self-expression above the potential well-being of their child.
