
1930s immigrants who Americanized their names earned more - feelthepain
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/03/names-and-wages
======
JamilD
Back in the 90s, my uncle couldn't find a job as a software engineer in Texas
- he wouldn't even get an interview, despite having graduated from a top-tier
American university.

After changing his first name on his resume from a very Muslim-sounding name
to an "Americanized" one, that changed completely.

Things are changing now, but I wouldn't be surprised if this bias is, at least
to some extent, still evident.

~~~
cottonseed
I had the idea for a "blind" job search/interview site that cleans
applications of race, age and gender information. I'm not going to build it,
but I think it would be great.

~~~
elwell
My white male neighbor made a version of his resume with a different name to
appear as an african-american female and got many more responses for his
education/childcare related applications.

~~~
x86_64Ubuntu
While it is enticing to entertain the idea that all worldly opportunities are
going to minorities, research shows that is far from the truth, despite
numerous anecdotes.

[http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873](http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873)

------
chimeracoder
This doesn't surprise me at all.

Even if the effect described in the article is not conscious ("let me pay this
person less, since he's a foreigner[0]"), I have no trouble seeing how it
could happen (unconsciously), based on my own personal experiences.

My first name is very difficult for Americans to pronounce because (A) it is
not phonetic; and (B) even a phonetic spelling would include sounds not common
in English.

My last name is actually an Anglicisation of the original family name, so it's
entirely phonetic. Even _still_ people have trouble saying it. That one
confuses me to this day.

The impact on my life of having a tough-to-pronounce name is usually subtle,
but it's noticeable in minor ways. I can imagine that these would add up in
the long run (perhaps not for every individual, but in the aggregate).

[0] That said, let's not discount the impact of being able to identify a
person's race by his/her name (the original Freakonomics book goes into this a
lot). I have a friend who has a very obviously Chinese name, and he started
putting "US Citizen" at the top of his resume, because so many people thought
that he needed visa sponsorship, even though he was born in the US.

Another friend of mine is white, but his surname also happens to be very
common for Koreans. He's had a few funny interactions where he walked into an
interview and the person was momentarily surprised to see a blonde, white man
instead of an Asian interviewee.

~~~
nickff
Is it not also possible that the people with Anglicized names are a self-
selecting group with high emotional intelligence quotients, or who possess
generally above-average self-awareness? Both of these traits are indicative of
career success, and make one more likely to change their name.[1]

[1]
[http://www.eiconsortium.org/reports/business_case_for_ei.htm...](http://www.eiconsortium.org/reports/business_case_for_ei.html)

~~~
chimeracoder
There are a number of reasons I'd question this line of reasoning, but the
biggest one is that many of us did not have a choice - our names were changed
without our consent.

~~~
nickff
Oh yes, I am by no means certain about my line of reasoning, but emotional
intelligence and self-awareness are inheritable traits; so even if your
parents or grandparents changed their names, it would still indicate an
increased likelihood of your possessing these traits.

~~~
epi8
The point is that a lot of the time immigrants who received Anglicized names
did so not because they chose to, but because they happened to get an
immigration officer who gave them an Anglicized spelling on Ellis island.

------
xplorer
That's actually what happens in Canada. In Quebec even if you're a native
French speaker ( the official language in Quebec ) but you happen to have a
Muslim name or a Chinese name you will suffer from discrimination... And this
is a fact... it's sometimes hidden behind an excuse that the person didn't
meet the criteria or didn't have enough experience.

In Quebec if you don't have an American name or a French name they might not
read your resume.

~~~
guylhem
Indeed, and to make things better, Quebec won't allow legal name change in
most cases.

Step 1) leave Quebec

Step 2) change your name in the other provice

Step 3) ... (return to Quebec, or wherever)

Step 4) Profit!

Source: I live there.

------
raverbashing
And sometimes "Americanized" means "the guy at the immigration counter didn't
know how to spell their name so he put the closest thing there"

If you knew how to spell Matthäus, good, otherwise it was Matthew

"Over half of Russian migrants Americanised their names; only 4% of Irish
migrants did so."

Not surprising, and I would bet the 4% consisted of Siobhans, Padraigs, etc

~~~
TillE
> Siobhan

I'm not sure how you could possibly anglicize that, short of adopting an
entirely new name. "Sean" would be phonetically close, but Siobhan is
exclusively feminine.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Anglicise, surely ;0)>

"Shavaun" ~10 per million in US census name information. "Shavaughn" seems
similarly [un]popular too.

Also, [https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amusing-Misspellings-of-
Siobh...](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amusing-Misspellings-of-
Siobhan/555508251165809).

~~~
theorique
Anecdotally, I've never met a "Shavaun" (or "Chivonne", etc).

All the "Siobhans" I've met seemed proud of their Irish heritage and history.
Making it easier and losing the Gaelic "bh" seems a bit more lower-class.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>"I've never met a "Shavaun" (or "Chivonne", etc)."

I wouldn't think I could say the same. My work means I do spell the names of
most people I meet, but certainly not all. I consider my spelling to be very
good but even so there are names each week that I can't spell [correctly]
and/or have never written before. Homophonic alternative spellings appear to
be in vogue.

As it happens I knew someone for maybe 20 years called Siobhan before I learnt
that was how you spelt it; if she was using a alternative spelling I'd never
have known.

------
drdeadringer
Asimov's short "Spell my name with an 'S'" addresses this. The title says it
all.

More recently, I've one or two articles regarding engineers having to add
"Mister" to their resume with dishearteningly profitable results.

------
gruseom
A friend of mine has the last name Miiller—i.e. "Miller" with a ludicrous
extra "i". This is because when his ancestors named Müller came over, someone
didn't recognize "ü" and wrote down "ii".

He's very proud of it, several generations later.

~~~
dublinben
The name "miiller" actually seems pretty common. Your friend is far from the
only person from a family (presumably descended from Müllers) with that
spelling. Curiously, how do they pronounce it?

~~~
gruseom
You're right. "Common" means something so different than it used to pre-
internet. I'm reminded of that every time I google something I think is
special.

Edit (missed your other question): He pronounces it "Miller".

------
tomrod
Small issue with the studywriteup: the emigration pool from each country was
not homogenous. Unless the authors addressed that within the study I'm
hesitant to believe the outcomes. The outcome is wages-from-occupation, which
occupational skills may have been the impetus for moving from a home country.

~~~
azernik
From the writeup:

> There is also the problem of reverse causality. It is quite possible that
> richer migrants were more inclined to Americanise their name. (They might,
> for example, live in a richer area with fewer migrants, which might
> incentivise them to change their name to fit in). So, to establish a causal
> link from name-changing to wage-boosting—and here’s my favourite part of the
> paper—the authors turn to Scrabble. They calculate the Scrabble score for
> the name of each arriving migrant (the score of all the letters in the name)
> and show that individuals who decided to Americanise had higher Scrabble
> points. That finding soothes worries about reverse causality: it suggests
> that it was not the wealthier people that changed their names, but those
> with unusual names.

~~~
tomrod
I hate it when I miss valid points in my sklm :). That's a perfectly
reasonable concern and an innovative bias-correction strategy.

It still misses the homogeneous point though: Russia might have a lot of
doctors emigrating for higher wages, whereas Italy might have had people
fleeing as refugees. We'd expect higher skilled workers with hard names to
adjust their hard-to-pronounce-and-therefore-hard-to-sell-services names.

~~~
bostonpete
> innovative bias-correction strategy.

It might be innovative, but I don't think it's valid. What if having a longer
name makes your 30% more likely to change your name _and_ being richer makes
you 30% more likely to change your name?

The Scrabble metric would still show that name length is a factor, but it
doesn't necessarily serve as evidence that other factors weren't in play as
well. Selection bias seems like an obvious suspect here and this Scrabble
discussion just seems like hand-waving to me.

~~~
azernik
My assumption is that they ran a correlation test, which checks how much of
the variation in name-changing is explained just by Scrabble score. If that's
high enough, there just isn't much room for other factors that aren't
themselves correlated with Scrabble score.

------
cwbrandsma
When my mom's family immigrated in the 50's from The Netherlands, all of the
kids were provided with new names. So my mom went from Antje to Ann, Dinnika
to Diana, Greitje to Grace, etc.

So they all learned english, all speak like native speakers, and gave their
children English names.

But those kids are now resurrecting the old dutch names. So, these Dutch
immigrants, with english names, and english named children, have grandchildren
with Dutch names...Willem, Berendt, Jannika, etc.

Sometimes things go full circle.

------
rodelrod
This is slightly off-topic, but I think many of the comments on this thread
would be enlightened by a little reminder: proper names were always translated
whenever you crossed a language border well into the 20th century. Eleanor of
Aquitaine was "Aliénor" in Bordeaux and "Eléonore" in Paris. Only with the
gradual bureaucratisation of daily life in Europe did this start to change. In
some conservative cultural settings, it still holds true: even today Prince
Charles is called "Carlos" in Spain or Portugal. Living in France, I much
rather have people pronounce the French variant of my name, purely because it
flows better and even sounds closer to the native version than their attempts
at reading a foreign ortograph. I am always surprised with how punctilious
people from the Americas are with the about spellings and variants of their
names, although I understand where they're coming from. In my head, John and
Giovanni are still the same name, and any made up variants are just
misspellings.

------
korzun
They earned more because they obviously knew how to get ahead. Not because of
their 'American' name.

~~~
EliRivers
Even today, 'American' names on a job application generate more response than
non-American. They do know how to get ahead; Americanize your name.

------
jimbobimbo
Whenever people ask me how I pronounce my last name, I answer "I don't".

Even my compatriots have problems spelling it properly; in US I had my credit
card re-issued three times due to misspellings and Amex doesn't allow as much
characters on their card, so I mix my Americanized first name with an original
last name. The only benefit of keeping it as is in US is when someone tries to
call you in the crowd - "Mr. erhm... ugh... hmmm..." \- is usually me. :)

------
voidlogic
"Over half of Russian migrants Americanised their names; only 4% of Irish
migrants did so."

Americanised, or Anglicized?

I have a feeling this variation by nationality extends well beyond
Russian/Irish divide, where I live many people are of German decent (42%, next
closest is Irish at 11%)and German family names are the most common. When I
bought my house I noticed every party involved had a German last name and that
made me take more notice in general.

------
harmonicon
So does this mean I should change my first name? My first name is one syllable
and it does not involve anything like tongue clicking or rolling. But many
people still find it hard to say. Name starts with a J and end with N and I
think people sabotage themselves by always trying to fit a "John" in there.

------
jmnicolas
Or they earned more because changing their name might be a sign of strong
motivation to fit-in and succeed.

~~~
drglitch
It would be interesting to run the same study with immigrants (or children of
immigrants) who are currently 20-30 years old.

As an immigrant myself, i would argue that those who have little existing
financial foundation AND the desire to succeed - which is evident by act of
immigrating - tend to be more successful overall.

------
wink
Immediately reminded me of
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Tail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Tail)
\- although a children's movie even back then it striked me as odd that names
were Americanized.

------
protomyth
Some changed their name to make a clean start. I had a buddy in college whose
great-grandfather changed his name from Yeager to something very
"Americanish".

Also, the hate for various groups (Irish for one) was pretty heavy with signs
(e.g. "No Irish Allowed").

~~~
aestra
> (Irish for one) was pretty heavy with signs (e.g. "No Irish Allowed").

It is a myth that such signs were ever common.

[http://historymyths.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/myth-82-signs-s...](http://historymyths.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/myth-82-signs-
saying-no-irish-need-apply-were-common/)

[http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-
irish.htm](http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm)

[http://www.cracked.com/article_18487_6-ridiculous-history-
my...](http://www.cracked.com/article_18487_6-ridiculous-history-myths-you-
probably-think-are-true_p2.html)

~~~
protomyth
Since all you sources point to one article by a "Richard Jensen", I'll just
point to the snopes thread[1] and the wikipedia article[2] with the other
research. The picture from the New York Times wanted ads is particularly
interesting.

I do take it we have forgotten about the "No Nothing Party".

1) [http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-
bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_to...](http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-
bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=102;t=000427;p=1)

2) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
Irish_sentiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment)

~~~
aestra
I didn't suggest the signs didn't exist at all, or that there wasn't anti-
irish sentiment. I suggested they weren't particularly common in America. Not
as much as widely believed.

------
kievins
This reminded me of Commodore founder Jack Tramiel who originally was called
Jacek Trzmiel.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Tramiel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Tramiel)

------
ilovecookies
Quick note: This was during the great depression, a period where more people
emigrated from the united states than into the country which kind of puts this
in perspective.

I think the reason for this was also that most of the immigrants back then
came from German speaking countries or countries affected by war, and since
they didn't want to get associated with the former governments in Europe and
first and second world war. Apparently they also earned more money with
american sounding names which was even more of an incentive to change their
names.

------
bluedino
This happens today in the US, especially with African-Americans with 'unique'
names.

'Charles Taylor' is going to get more callbacks than his sister
'LaQuashandreka Taylor'.

------
allochthon
The article deals with immigrants to the US trying to fit in the 1930s, a time
when great pressure was brought to bear on people to conform to a narrow,
archetypal notion of Americanness, and appreciation of diversity was far from
people's minds. I'm hoping that in 2014 incremental progress is being made in
a direction in which there will be less and less pressure to change one's name
to fit in and advance economically.

------
beachstartup
i'm asian american (born and raised here in the us) but have completely anglo-
sounding common first and last names.

i can say that i've never been discriminated against in a professional/work
context, ever, and i think that has a LOT to do with it. probably all to do
with it.

a lot of people think i was adopted. lol.

------
kingmanaz
When in Rome do as the Romans do.

------
Lambdanaut
It could also be that people that are more driven to work together and co-
exist in their new country are more likely to change their names.

It could be that they have better wages because they're better at group
cooperation.

------
disputin
Eastern Europeans in London do this. Andrzej becomes Andrew, Wojciech becomes
Voytek, names beginning with Sz drop the z. People working in coffee shops
often change their name after working there a while.

~~~
theorique
_change their name after working there a while_

The 300th time you have to say "spelled XYZABC", or the 300th time someone
says "I'm sorry, what?" when you tell them your name, people tend to reach
their breaking point.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
I literally get this all the time... having to spell it out.. people asking me
"did you say your name was Alladin? Is that like Bin Laden?"

I don't think I'd ever be able to change it though and tell a whole whack of
people I meet to just call me Ben or something. It's too much a part of my
identity.

~~~
theorique
I hear that. On the one hand, it's repeated inconvenience. On the other hand,
it's your _name_ , that you've lived with your entire life. A big part of a
person's identity in most cases.

