Just fine, apparently. Wikipedia: Dweezil Zappa
Posted on 04/30/2007 10:01:40 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Research shows that girls with 'feminine' names steer clear of 'masculine' maths and science
Parents are being warned to think long and hard when choosing names for their babies as research has discovered that girls who are given very feminine names, such as Anna, Emma or Elizabeth, are less likely to study maths or physics after the age of 16, a remarkable study has found.
Both subjects, which are traditionally seen as predominantly male, are far more popular among girls with names such as Abigail, Lauren and Ashley, which have been judged as less feminine in a linguistic test. The effect is so strong that parents can set twin daughters off on completely different career paths simply by calling them Isabella and Alex, names at either end of the spectrum. A study of 1,000 pairs of sisters in the US found that Alex was twice as likely as her twin to take maths or science at a higher level.
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...
And girls with names like “Anushka” tend to write sillyass articles.
.. a girl named Bob
Nope, never been a Nobel prize winner in science named Bubba or Billy Bob.
Right. I’ll name my next daughter Fred then.
LoL...
Lol, I was going to comment that she should’ve gone into math with a name like that.
What a load of BS from the Guardian.
I think a first name no matter how macho would not help this guy...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhO2PpGiBtI
Remember poor Dweezil? Wonder how he turned out?
I’ll take “Junk pseudo-science with no basis in reality” for 400, Alex.
I noticed Kuntakintay was not mentioned. Just wondering what the outcome has been on that name, popular among African Americans after ROOTS came out.
That's only 'cuz there ain't no Nobel prize for frog giggin'.
You’d have better luck in German. Hermann von Helmholtz (physics, physiology) sounds like a good name for a general! (Over a century ago, though;)
Aw, what the hey? Just name her "Butch" and see if she wins a Nobel Prize for some great scientific breakthrough.
This article is a load of Anushka. LOL
Lorena Bobbitt
Polly?
That's a boy named Sue.
That’s funny. My little girl Butchie is a science and math whiz. She can repair a Harley too.
Now, now... Not so fast. I tend to believe the claim. A simple statistical analysis would tell the whole story. Wouldn’t need a million dollar grant, either.
It’s because kids are generally named in relation to the family life they’ll end up experiencing.
“Elizabeth” is, I imagine, more likely to occur in a well-to-do family that’ll end up spoiling the girl who will, as a result, end up not caring about the “harder” subjects in school.
“Billy Bob” as mentioned in an earlier response will likely be the result of in-bred rednecks in the deep south. Do you really expect many of those people to become Nobel recipients? I don’t.
And for the record, I was born in East Texas and grew up in a trailer. I think I’m qualified to offer an opinion =P
Shoot, you beat me to it!
Yup, Ms. Polly Nomial. Knew her well.
And if you name your boy Sue, he’ll become a alcoholic drifter looking to kill his pa.
While those named Li, Xia, Raji or Savidharani do much better in math and physics.
I noticed names like Samantha and Jessica are rated toward the more feminine on the scale. But what if they go by nicknames like Jesse or Sam?
I think there is some truth to this article. How many Taniq’uas and D’samajs are rising to the top of any given field?
Answer honestly.
“Elizabeth” is, I imagine, more likely to occur in a well-to-do family that’ll end up spoiling the girl who will, as a result, end up not caring about the “harder” subjects in school.
lol. My sister got screwed. Not well-to-do family and just a bit spoiled.
Wonder how the granola crowd’s kids named Amerika, Rainbow, Sunshine, Horizon, Freedom, etc are doing? Nevermind, they all went into journalism or work for AlBore.
I just picked a name from the sky =P Statistically speaking though the point, I think, remains.
Good point. Any analysis would have to control for socio-economic background.
LOL!
That’s why you’d never get funding to do this study. Fortunately, however, it’d take next to nothing to do it.
Just fine, apparently. Wikipedia: Dweezil Zappa
My truck driving uncle from Arkansas had the nickname of “Sue”. I always believed Johnny Cash had heard about him and hence the song. He named his daughter Susan.
By and large, I’ll bet they’re in dire straights, unless mommy and daddy left them big fat annuities.
Wow, good for him! A name like that would be hard to overcome.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/29/national/main575685.shtml
‘Black’ Names A Resume Burden?
Study: ‘Black-Sounding’ Names Prompt Fewer Job Callback
BOSTON, Sept. 29, 2003
Michelle Botus, 37, right, is seen holding 2-year-old Denzil Foster with his bottle, 6-year-old Khalima Foster, lower-left, and Alaysia, 14. (AP)
Quote
White names got about one callback per 10 resumes; black names got one per 15. Carries and Kristens had call-back rates of more than 13 percent, but Aisha, Keisha and Tamika got 2.2 percent, 3.8 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.
(AP) When Vonnessa Goode gives birth in a few weeks, one of her first decisions could be among the toughest: whether to give her daughter a distinctively black name.
On the one hand, Goode and the child’s father don’t want their daughter “robbed of her ethnicity,” she said. On the other, she believes a distinctively black name could end up being an economic impediment.
“I do believe now when a resume comes across an employer’s desk they could be easily discriminated against because they know that person is of African-America descent,” she said. “It’s a difficult decision.”
Minorities of all kinds have wrestled with whether to celebrate their culture by giving their children distinctive names, or help them “blend in” with a name that won’t stick out. Thousands of Jews have changed their names, hoping to improve their economic prospects in the face of discrimination, as have Asians and other minorities.
Blacks, however, have chosen increasingly distinctive names over the past century, with the trend accelerating during the 1960s.
Researchers who have looked at Census records have found that 100 years ago, the 20 most popular names were largely the same for blacks and whites; now only a handful are among the most popular with both groups. Names like DeShawn and Shanice are almost exclusively black, while whites, whose names have also become increasingly distinctive, favored names like Cody and Caitlin.
Two recent papers from the Cambridge-based National Bureau of Economic Research draw somewhat different conclusions about whether a black name is a burden. One, an analysis of the 16 million births in California between 1960 and 2000, claims it has no significant effect on how someone’s life turns out.
The other, however, suggests a black-sounding name remains an impediment to getting a job. After responding to 1,300 classified ads with dummy resumes, the authors found black-sounding names were 50 percent less likely to get a callback than white-sounding names with comparable resumes.
If nothing else, the first paper, by the NBER’s Roland Fryer and the University of Chicago’s Steven Levitt, based on California birth data, provides probably the most detailed snapshot yet of distinctive naming practices. It shows, for instance, that in recent years, more than 40 percent of black girls were given names that weren’t given to even one of the more than 100,000 white girls born in the state the same year.
The paper says black names are associated with lower socioeconomic status, but the authors don’t believe it’s the names that create an economic burden.
Using Social Security numbers, they track the changes in circumstances of women born in the early 1970s who then show up in the data in 1980s and ‘90s as mothers themselves. The data also show whether those second-generation mothers have health insurance and in which Zip Codes they reside - admittedly imperfect measurements of economic achievement.
The data do appear to show that a poor woman’s daughter is more likely to be poor when she gives birth herself - but no more so because she has a distinctively black name.
To Fryer, that suggests black parents shouldn’t be afraid to choose ethnic names. It also, he says, suggests more broadly that for blacks to improve economically, they don’t have to change their culture, but should push for greater integration in society.
“It’s not really that you’re named Kayesha that matters, it’s that you live in a community where you’re likely to get that name that matters,” Fryer said.
The University of Chicago’s Marianne Bertrand and MIT’s Sendhil Mullainathan, however, appeared to find that a black-sounding name can be an impediment, in another recent NBER paper entitled “Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal?”
The authors took the content of 500 real resumes off online job boards and then evaluated them, as objectively as possible, for quality, using such factors as education and experience. Then they replaced the names with made-up names picked to “sound white” or “sound black” and responded to 1,300 job ads in The Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune last year.
Previous studies have examined how employers responded to similarly qualified applicants they meet in person, but this experiment attempted to isolate the response to the name itself.
White names got about one callback per 10 resumes; black names got one per 15. Carries and Kristens had call-back rates of more than 13 percent, but Aisha, Keisha and Tamika got 2.2 percent, 3.8 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. And having a higher quality resume, featuring more skills and experience, made a white-sounding name 30 percent more likely to elicit a callback, but only 9 percent more likely for black-sounding names.
Even employers who specified “equal opportunity employer” showed bias, leading Mullainathan to suggest companies serious about diversity must take steps to confront even unconscious biases - for instance, by not looking at names when first evaluating a resume.
Both studies have their shortcomings; the California records give only broad indicators of economic achievement, and studying whose resumes elicit callbacks doesn’t show who ultimately gets the jobs or what they do once employed.
But both also point to dilemmas for advocates of greater economic opportunity for blacks. Some, like Fryer, are eager to show black culture isn’t a handicap, and black parents shouldn’t shy away from it. On the other hand, Bertrand and Mullainathan’s work suggests a black name could still conceivably hold someone back. The question is whether a distinctive name is a cause or consequence of black isolation.
Where is Goode leaning? She says her daughter will likely end up with a “neutral” name, Naomi or Layla perhaps, that won’t signal her race either way.
Michelle Botus, a 37-year-old student at Bunker Hill Community College who has named her four children Asia, Alaysia, Khalima and Denzil, said she would advise mothers to choose names they like, then make sure their children get the education they need to rise above any discrimination they face.
“The fact you didn’t give the child the name you wanted, your regrets could be manifested in other ways later on,” said Botus. “I would say go for it. Just the fact that the mother would have the insight to have a dilemma, that means she’s thinking, and that’s one of the most important skills in parenting.”
http://www.behindthename.com/
Gives information on firstnames (popularity from the last 100 years, meanings, foreign names, connotations, and much more)
I’m awfully glad my parents didn’t name me Guido or Horst or some crap like that!
Wow, excellent, thanks! Bookmarked.
Where does Bertha fit on the list?
Oh I know. I just thought it was funny. Have a good one!
Max Power
HE Went to school for nuclear physics..
What is super-macho?
All my uncles (5, then there’s my dad) are engineers. The younger 1s very German (can’t get much more male than that):
William (this was grampa’s name - actually he was born Wilhelm)
Richard
James
David
Karl
Gerhardt (dad)
He became a black muslim and retooled it to Qunta Qinte...
Imagine being prepped for major surgery when the surgeon introduces herself as Brandi.
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