Many parents are concerned about what to name their new baby. Unique names are described to be harmful to the child and their success (Conley, 2010). However, giving a child a ‘normal’ name doesn’t fix the larger issue - racism in today’s society (Joshi, 2014). When parents are naming their children, they should not worry about the cultural roots the name comes from because children are going to be discriminated against for various other things. Plenty of research has been conducted explaining how names have a short term and/or a long term effect on people. Roland Fryer and Steven Levitt showed a study comparing black and white names to their social class. Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan researched names in a way of getting a job,
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Figlio analyzed names in school records showing that teachers and administrators discriminated against students with typically black names. Children with black names were less often in gifted/honor classes (Conley, 2010). This gives children of color less opportunity to receive a better education. Anushka Asthana wrote an article stating “Edyta Ballantyne, a primary school teacher in North London, said she would often be given the names of children in her class before meeting them and admitted that it was hard not to form judgements (Asthana,2007).” Before meeting the children she was already forming an idea about how this child would perform in her class study wise and behavior wise. From the same article by Asthana it also says that children with lower-class names scored an average five percent less than those who have higher-class names(Asthana, 2007). Children with odd sounding names were looked down upon in school and even miss good opportunities because of their non-normal name. People make assumptions about how children are going to act in school by their name and treat them less than others. These children are going to act-up just like the people believed they would have. Before people even meet these children they already have an idea on what nationality this child is because of their name, and then they form judgements based off
Figlio analyzed names in school records showing that teachers and administrators discriminated against students with typically black names. Children with black names were less often in gifted/honor classes (Conley, 2010). This gives children of color less opportunity to receive a better education. Anushka Asthana wrote an article stating “Edyta Ballantyne, a primary school teacher in North London, said she would often be given the names of children in her class before meeting them and admitted that it was hard not to form judgements (Asthana,2007).” Before meeting the children she was already forming an idea about how this child would perform in her class study wise and behavior wise. From the same article by Asthana it also says that children with lower-class names scored an average five percent less than those who have higher-class names(Asthana, 2007). Children with odd sounding names were looked down upon in school and even miss good opportunities because of their non-normal name. People make assumptions about how children are going to act in school by their name and treat them less than others. These children are going to act-up just like the people believed they would have. Before people even meet these children they already have an idea on what nationality this child is because of their name, and then they form judgements based off