My last name has been the butt of jokes and a general curiosity to people all my life. But I never thought of it as a career liability, until now!
I just read through a study by professors at a trio of universities titled “The name-pronunciation effect: Why people like Mr. Smith more than Mr. Colquhoun” and it’s not good news for the Tahminicioglus of the world.
Turns out, people with hard-to-pronounce names are judged more negatively than the Jones and Smiths out there; and, the easy to pronounce among us are more apt to have higher-ranking positions.
The report by researchers at the University of Melbourne, Australia; University of Leuven, Belgium; and New York University found:
“Names vary in the ease with which they are pronounced.
Drawing on work in processing fluency, the current paper explored
the name-pronunciation effect: that easy-to-pronounce names (and
the bearers of those names) are judged more positively than
difficult-to-pronounce names.”
The most disturbing part of the study is what the researchers found when they reviewed a host of U.S. law firms and the employees there. “An important real-world implication of the name-pronunciation effect: people with easier-to-pronounce surnames occupy higher status positions in law firms.”
While the news is disheartening for many of us with “weird” names, at least weird to certain people, it is nice to have a new excuse when I’m unable to advance in my career. And my disadvantage may have started well before I entered the workforce.
“In classroom contexts, for example, preferences for students with easy-to-pronounce names may result in selective
treatment, engendering self-fulfilling prophecy effects often detrimental to educational and social outcomes,” the report stated.
Hey maybe I should just move out of the country. Tahmincioglu is like Smith in Istanbul.
February 29th, 2012 at 10:46 am
Did you see the documentary “Freakonomics”? Unusual names was the focus of one of their studies. It’s also in Chapter 6 of the book by the same name. Not only do unusual names affect students’ school careers, adults also face bias in hiring. I often think names should not be on resumes, in order to level the playing field for all applicants.
February 29th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
This raises an interesting point since some women still take their spouse’s name when they marry. Individuals who have a name that’s easy to spell or pronounce may want to consider keeping it now. And perhaps now there will now be folks who decide to create a new name just to advance their career.
March 1st, 2012 at 4:23 am
Great topic Eva,
Pronounceability is based on familiarity - as you mentioned at the end of your piece, Tahminciolgu is not difficult to pronounce in Istanbul. And so we can’t really get away from the immigration debate when talking about the impact naming conventions have on job search or career progression. It’s long been a forcing factor why immigrants alter their names to something more ‘ethnically neutral’ when coming into a new country, probably under the proviso that effective cultural assimilation has some ameliorating effect on whatever native prejudice that might be arraigned against you (see: Hayworth, Rita).
This is seems to be a cross cultural phenomenon - i.e the pressure would be the same for an English name to go to, say, an Islamic country - though I speculate that whether you can successfully ‘carry’ your ethnic name into a new country depends on degree of power your minority has in relation to the majority ethnic group (i.e English immigrants to Hong Kong traditionally formed the upper class in that society, and therefore never any social pressure to take ‘Chinese’ name)
@Catherine makes an important point - Freakonomics does deal with this issue, but with a different take, looking mainly on class rather than ethnicity. The main interest of that chapter was how the aspirational class adopted naming conversations of the upper classes, in what looked like a subconscious recognition of the value of having the ‘right’ name. And of course, those upper classes responded by changing their naming conventions to forms that the aspirational classes were not yet using, causing names to circulate amongst the ‘classes’ in a generational cycles.
@Amy point on women taking spouses name is also significant. It’s clearly a power play to take on a native name; quite the opposite to take on an ethnic name. The US, with it’s history as state founded on immigration, probably has more experience and less of a problem with this than other countries out there. But ultimately, the rules don’t change - unless you’re a member of the colonial ruling class, it makes economic sense to culturally assimilate.
A fascinating topic, thanks for bringing it up.
Best wishes
Hung (
March 4th, 2012 at 12:49 am
I purposely gave my kids ‘different’ first names - not hard to pronounce per se but different. I hope they don’t read this and hold it against me.
I wonder if part of this is that people hate not knowing how to pronounce a name and will avoid calling the person or calling on them due to embarassment? But that doesn’t explain not advancing in the same organization . . .
March 5th, 2012 at 10:50 am
A friend of mine’s husband is in business and has some input into hiring. A few years ago, he mentioned that if an application comes in and they are unsure if the applicant is male or female, the application goes in the trash. Fair? No, but employers seem to look for any reason, no matter how silly, to narrow down the pool of applicants.