Dear Economist
Dear Economist,
My wife and I are about to have a new baby girl and we were planning to call her “Aisha”, which we think is a beautiful African name. The trouble is, we’re not African and my mother-in-law has been agitating for something a bit more conventional, such as “Molly” or “Liz”. Can you recommend a course of action?
Tim Monks, London
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Dear Mr Monks,
First, would an African name cause your daughter to suffer discrimination in the workplace? Second, will she like the name on its own merits?
When the economists Sendhil Mullainathan and Marianne Bertrand sent out thousands of fake job applications to employers in Boston and Chicago, adding distinctively black or white names at random, they found unmistakeable evidence of racial discrimination against the black-sounding candidates. And well-qualified black-sounding candidates did no better than poorly qualified black-sounding candidates. It’s as though the employers just moved on whenever they came across a Jermaine or a LaTonya.
Yet other research by economists Roland Fryer and Steven Levitt suggests that giving a black child a white-sounding name does not help the child’s prospects. What that implies in your rather rare situation is not clear, but at least you will confuse the racists.
Then there is the question of your daughter’s preferences. Teenagers want boring names but many adults feel differently. Thus you need to build flexibility into the full name: an interesting middle name with a tedious first name, and vice versa. She can vary them as time goes by, and I think she is more likely to get the decision right than you, me, or even your mother-in-law.
给孩子取名的经济学
亲
爱的经济学家：
我妻子和我将迎来一个女儿，我们打算给她取名为“阿伊莎”(Aisha)。我们觉得，这是一个非常美丽的非洲名字。但问题是，我们都不是非洲人，而且我岳母一直鼓动我们给小宝贝取一个更为传统的名字，例如“莫莉”(Molly)或“莉斯”(Liz)。你能给我一些建议么？
提姆?蒙克斯(Tim Monks)，来自伦敦
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亲爱的蒙克斯先生：
首先，一个非洲名字会不会导致令嫒在工作中遭遇歧视？第二，她本人是否喜欢这个名字？
经济学家森德希尔?穆莱纳桑(Sendhil Mullainathan)和玛丽安娜?贝特朗(Marianne Bertrand)曾经做过一个实验，向波士顿和芝加哥的雇主发出了数千封假冒的求职信，随机使用具有明显黑人或白人特征的姓名。结果发现，这些雇主对黑人姓名申请人抱有明显的种族歧视。而且，高素质黑人姓名申请人的遭遇，并不比低素质黑人姓名申请人的遭遇更好。那些雇主好像只要看到杰梅因(Jermaine)或拉托尼亚(LaTonya)之类的名字，就会把求职信扔到一边。
经济学家罗兰?弗赖尔(Roland Fryer)和史蒂芬?莱维特(Steven Levitt)进行的另外一项研究显示，给黑人孩子取一个白人化的名字，对这个孩子的前途也没什么帮助。不知道这一研究对你这种相当罕见的情况到底意味着什么，但你的举动至少会把那些种族主义者搞糊涂。
然后就是令嫒的喜好问题。十几岁的少男少女喜欢一些令人乏味的名字，但很多成年人却与之相反。因此，你最好在孩子的全名上留有灵活余地：取一个有趣的中间名，配上一个乏味的名字，或者反之。她在成长过程中可以灵活变换使用；而且我认为，与你、我，甚至你的岳母相比，她更可能作出正确的决定。
