Note: This article was originally published on HubPages and has been migrated here to ronelfran.com. This updated version gives the full story of Keisha’s transformation, with the most up-to-date details and insights.
When she turned 19, Keisha Austin decided she had to do something about her name. So, she asked her mother to give her a new name as a Christmas gift. That’s why in October of 2013, Keisha and her mom went to the courthouse in Johnson County, Missouri. After filling out some paperwork and handing over a $175 fee, the former Keisha went back home as Kylie Austin.
A Teenager Feels Compelled to Change Her “Black” Name
But why? This was not just the whim of a fickle teenager. Keisha made her decision to change her name only after much thought and with a good deal of opposition from her mother and from friends as well. Why was this so important to her?
Kylie Austin is the daughter of a Black father and a White mother. Cristy Austin, Kylie’s mom, knew that her child, though biracial, would be looked upon as African American. Wanting her to grow up feeling connected to and proud of her heritage, Cristy decided to give her a distinctly “Black” name. She chose Keisha because, to her, that name represented a “strong, feminine, beautiful black woman.”
But after 19 years of being known as Keisha, the younger Austin decided that the burden of having a Black-sounding name was more than she could bear.
Growing up in a mostly white environment, Keisha had been subjected all her life to taunts, jokes, and bullying based on her name. Classmates at school would ask if there was a “La” or “Sha” attached to it. Even a teacher made jokes about it. To Keisha, there was often more than a hint of hidden racism and prejudice in their comments.
“It’s like they assumed that I must be a certain kind of girl,” she says. “Like, my name is Keisha, so they think they know something about me, and it always felt negative.”
A Person’s Name Can Make a Real Difference in Their Life
Keisha Austin’s experience with name-based prejudice is by no means unique. Since the Black Power days of the early 1970s, some African American parents have delighted in choosing conspicuously non-White-sounding names for their offspring. It was, just as Cristy Austin thought, a statement of racial pride and independence.
But a factor those well-meaning parents may not have considered is that in a society still far from being color blind, having a name that identifies a person sight-unseen as Black can often prove to be a distinct disadvantage.
Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) conducted a study to determine the effect on employment of having a name that could be related to a particular race. The research was conducted between July 2001 and January 2002.
In their study, the researchers sent out resumes in response to employment ads in Chicago and Boston newspapers. The resumes were divided into two equivalent groups, each representing a range of qualifications for the positions. Half of them were randomly assigned names typically associated with Blacks, while the other half bore “white-sounding names, such as Emily Walsh or Greg Baker.”
Bertrand and Mullainathan reported on their research in a paper entitled Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? The NBER summarized their findings this way:
A job applicant with a name that sounds like it might belong to an African-American – say, Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones – can find it harder to get a job…
The results indicate large racial differences in callback rates…
Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback…
The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant… It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience.
Although the original NBER study was conducted more than a quarter of a century ago, its conclusions remain valid today. A research brief, entitled “A Discrimination Report Card,” published by the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Economics reports that:
A new statistical methodology is used to grade the race and gender callback gaps of large US employers and shows that firms assigned the worst grade are estimated to favor white applicants over Black applicants by 24%, while those assigned the best grade favor white applicants by only 3%. Gender discrimination is rare at the interview stage and concentrated in certain industries.
Even Google Treats People With Black-Sounding Names Differently
The disparities in how people are treated based on whether their name seems Black or White extends even to Google.
Harvard professor Latanya Sweeney, who is Black, began noticing something odd in her Google searches. It seemed she was seeing an inordinate number of ads for criminal background checks and the like. So, she conducted an academic research study to determine if her perception was real. It was.
What she found was that ads placed with some Google searches show a racial bias:
Dr. Sweeney discovered that Google searches for names typically associated with blacks, such as “Ebony,” “DeShawn,” or, ironically, her own name, “Latanya,” were 25 per cent more likely to bring up advertisements for services having to do with criminality than were similar searches using more “white” sounding names, such as “Kristen” or “Jill.”
Ads for criminal background checks or arrest records appeared even when the particular black-sounding name searched had no criminal records associated with it. On the other hand, white-sounding names often yielded no such ads even though the advertiser’s own database contained criminal records attached to that name.
This is not so much a Google issue as an advertiser issue. Google ads end up where they do because advertisers choose the keywords that will trigger their ad placements. So, these crime-related ads show up on searches for names associated with African Americans because, apparently, some advertisers think Blacks are the group most concerned with criminality.
Data from Virginia, Colorado, Arkansas, Texas, and New York City, which are the only localities that record newborns’ names by race.
Source: babycenter.com
Most Common Names for CEOs of US Companies
Men
Women
Peter, Jack, Bob, Chris, Fred, Bill, Ron, Don, Bruce, Alexander
Deborah, Pamela, Cynthia, Cheryl, Sally
Source: Article by Michele L. Norris, “The maddeningly limited vision of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s guidance counselor,” The Washington Post, February 28, 2022.
Should Parents Avoid Giving Their Children “Black” Names?
When Keisha Austin was considering her name change, both her mother and some friends initially urged her not to do it. One friend told Keisha that she should stand up to prejudice, and demonstrate to people that a name doesn’t define the person.
But should parents put that kind of pressure on their children, inflicting on them the onus of having to bear an added burden just because of the name they were given? Is it really fair for parents to express their own racial pride in that way when it’s the children who will have to pay the cost?
Is it responsible parenting to put an African American child, as Bertrand and Mullainathan indicate, up to eight years behind Whites in terms of the qualifications and experience required to get an equivalent job?
A Counter Example: Barack Obama
On the other hand, there is the example of another biracial child who did stand up to prejudice associated with his name and made it to the very top. Barack Obama was known early in his life as Barry. That was also the name his Kenyan father had chosen as his American nickname.
But in 1980, when he was a student at Occidental College, Barack Obama decided to make a change. When he went home at Christmas of that year, he told his family that from then on he wanted to be known by his given name, Barack. In essence, Obama made the opposite choice from the one Keisha Austin made. And, as we know, that worked pretty well for him.
Throughout his two campaigns for president, there were many who focused derisively on his non-American-sounding name. But that didn’t prevent Barack Hussein Obama from twice being elected to the highest office in the land.
Could it have been that extra drive and pride from his name that helped propel a young Barack Obama to aspire to the heights he achieved? To me, it seems probable that his name was more of a positive than a negative, not so much because of others’ perceptions of that name, but in its effect on the person himself.
So, which way should parents go?
Does Your Child Need a “Resume-Ready” Name?
Author and blogger Malaka Grant has a definite opinion regarding how African American parents should approach naming their children:
We middle class Black folk know that it is imperative to give our children “resume ready” names if we want them to have any sort of [a] shot at success in America. Naming your child LaQuilla or Ty’esha is something you do at your own peril. Most people of color know that the stratospheric success a man of color named “Barack Obama” would enjoy is the exception, rather than the rule.
Malaka Grant
Should parents give their children “Black” names?
Yes – It builds pride in who they are
Yes – But only if the parents adequately prepare the child to deal with prejudice
No – It may cause the child to be discriminated against
One Option: Let the Child Decide
Many parents see the name they choose to give their child as part of the ongoing struggle for racial equality. While they recognize that it could place an extra burden on their offspring, they believe it will actually make the child stronger, as it apparently did with Barack Obama.
But what about those parents who would like to give their child a distinctive name he or she can proudly live up to, but are reluctant to put their progeny at a disadvantage relative to others?
One possible solution to the dilemma is to let the child decide. Obviously, parents must give their baby a name long before it is able to choose for itself. But I think we already have a well accepted way of allowing the child to choose the name by which he or she will be known.
Black teenagers. Source: Karin Vlietstra via flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Here’s my suggestion: give the child a racially neutral first name. Then, if desired, give them a middle name reflecting the particular aspirations and pride the parents have for their offspring. Now, at an appropriate time in his or her life, the child can decide which name to emphasize without being accused of being ashamed of their name.
Most people in our society are known by their given first name, and seldom even mention their middle name. On the other hand, there are many who “go by” their middle name, and may or may not ever allude to their first name.
The Example of Mitt Romney
An example is Barack Obama’s opponent in the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney. I’m sure that to this day, most people who voted for or against him have no idea that his name is actually Willard Mitt Romney. It was Romney himself who chose by which name he would be known.
Similarly, Michael Tyshawn Anderson or Brenda Lakisha Smith would have the choice of which name they wanted to be publicly known by.
Name Prejudice Is Wrong, but Real
None of this in any way serves to justify prejudice based on a person’s name. That’s a despicable practice that no one can defend. But it’s also a fact of life. For that reason parents can’t just consult their own hopes and dreams (or whims) in choosing a name. They should at least think through the impact a particular name might have on the life experiences of their child, and make their decision in light of that assessment.
Is it OK for a parent to give a child a name popularly associated with a particular race? Absolutely! And is it OK to do it in such a way that the child can ultimately decide by which name to be known? To me, that makes a lot of sense.
