ABC News 20/20 Report: White and Black Names

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

I think there is something to be said for having a non-standard name, but naming your son Jamison or Payton is different from naming him Sen'Derrick or Latron. I'm not judging a person by their name, what I was saying is that businesses have to have their interests in mind when hiring...which will often lead to them hiring a person with a more traditional and professional name. Makes sense to me.

Based on white America's standards of tradition and professional. That's why this topic is salient. The decision makers in this country tend to be whites and particularly white males. There are smaller instances where racial and ethnic minorities are in hiring positions. Some of these people choose to discriminate by name, but this happens much less often and for very different types of jobs.

I'm not for naming children after cars or bottles of liquor. However many names that are known as "black" in North America have roots in Russian and other cultures. Not all of them are from the African continent or made-up. My names are Swahili and they also have translations in East Indian and other African languages. I love my names and names like mine. I'm not in a career field where discrimination by name is common (with the increase in women and various races and ethnicities in my field over the past 10-20 yrs, there are fewer older white males making all of the decisions).

However, I have had people wonder why my parents gave their children Swahili names (it was the 70's for goodness sake). Blacks have a harder time pronouncing my name than whites do but I have had whites who have tried to assign me nicknames. Some blacks have tried to assign me a nickname but I find that blacks generally understand how offensive it is to me to shorten my name into an "Americanized" version of it. Blacks' nicknames for me tend to still be very "ethnic" but just a shorter version of my name. Either way, I don't do assigned nicknames. Learn to pronounce my name or don't call on me at all.