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“Words have meaning and names have power.” – Author Unknown
Last week I wrote a guest post at I Will Teach You To Be Rich about how men’s and women’s magazines write about money. My conclusion: women get fed the softer side of money from the likes of O, The Oprah Magazine and Glamour. It created some lively comments and one submitted by John M. introduced a thought that I wanted to expand on today at BlogHer. He writes:
"We talk down to women about money for the same reason we give our daughters names like “Tiffany” and “Amber” while naming our sons things like “Robert” and “David”. Our expectation is that they will be homemakers or trophies and nothing else. How many physicians have you known named “Amber”? Mine is named Mary."
That’s interesting. My doctor’s name is Chris. As in Christina.
Anyone want to explore this topic with me? To get the conversation started, take Kelly’s post at Don Mills Diva where she asks:
"What’s in a name?
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.I’ve gotta say, I’m with Shakespeare on this one.
A Globe and Mail article earlier this week on the lengths parents will go to find the perfect name for their offspring leaves me bemused.
Bemused because I think parents who pay $99.95 for a 30-minute name consult (for real – you can’t make this stuff up!) are wasting their money on something that really doesn’t matter that much at all… for the most part, your child is going to grow into whatever name you give them and therefore define the name they are given, not the other way around."
Kelly named her son Graham.
A couple of years ago, research from the UK found that the chances of being a top earner are impacted by a parent’s decision about what to name their child. The survey by Barclays shows that there are more Davids and Susans earning over £100,000 than any other name.
But Laura Wattenberg, author of The Baby Name Wizard and iVillage blogger disputes the findings in her post: Quick, name your kids David and Susan! Or don’t. She writes:
As you would predict from the economic lifecycle curve, the names on the Barclays list were big hits about 35-55 years ago. Based on this, I wouldn’t rush out and change my name to Davy-Sue.
At Freakonomics, there’s a FREAK-TV video featuring Steven D. Levitt discussing the topic of naming your kid. His conclusion: Name Your Kid Fido If You Want
That said, he did write a chapter with his co-author in their popular book about the economic implications of a child’s names. Most of the chapter focuses on the ethnic African-American names that have become commonplace. Here’s the blurb from WikiSummaries:
The authors tied this issue to a larger question about contemporary black culture in the United States: is distinctive black culture merely a reflection of the economic gap between whites and blacks, or has it actively caused the gap to widen?
Using several decades of name data drawn from California birth certificate records, Levitt’s analysis revealed a number of interesting trends. The authors cite previous research that has shown that similar résumés with white and distinctively black names result in job offers being extended to the white-sounding applicant far more frequently than the black-sounding applicant. Among other things, it was determined that having a distinctively black name was linked to lower attainment and negative life outcomes in terms of employment, income, and education.
The question in the book then turned to how names become popular among white Americans:
In addition to the general trend of increasingly unique names for white children, Levitt describes a pattern by which highly educated parents popularize obscure names, gradually compelling the names to achieve broader popularity. Finally, after a period of several years, white parents from lower socioeconomic classes adopt the names, prompting a selection of new names among highly-educated white parents, and the repetition of another cycle.
The Slate magazine blog ran excerpts from the book and included the following:
Obviously, a variety of motives are at work when parents consider a name for their child. It would be an overstatement to suggest that all parents are looking—whether consciously or not—for a smart name or a high-end name. But they are all trying to signal something with a name, and an overwhelming number of parents are seemingly trying to signal their own expectations of how successful they hope their children will be. The name itself isn’t likely
