Can I ask you something?....
What does a Martha look like to you? Is it a white middle aged woman?
How about a Woody? Definitely not a black man right?
Which of these shapes below would you call Takete and Maluma:
Words convey symbolic ideas beyond their meaning. The majority of us think malumas are soft and round while taketes are hard and sharp. These were the findings of renowned psychologist Wolfgang Köhler. The University of New York, led by Brett Pelham, studied this unconscious bias phenomena and identified we all have an “implicit egotism”. That is to say people “prefer people, places, and things that they associate (unconsciously) with the self...people’s positive automatic associations about themselves may influence their feelings about almost anything that people associate with the self.”
This is almost obvious but it raises an important question: How much does this subconscious judgement contribute to prejudice? Imagine you met someone whose name is Heaven or Mercedes? Would you take them as seriously as a David or Alexander? The country singer Johnny Cash has a song called A Boy Named Sue. It tells the misfortunes of a boy whose deadbeat dad gives him a girls name before disappearing from his life. Naturally, the boy seeks vengeance and when he confronts his bum of a father in bar brawl; he (father) contends it was his way of making sure his son survives in this tough life. It's a good song.
So should we all change our names like actors do, in order to improve our prospects of getting jobs and opportunities. Would Norma Jean Mortenson be as successful had she not changed her name to Marilyn Monroe? When a name rolls off the tongue, rhymes or sounds quirky, at an implicit level we associate more positive emotion with it. If you are Jamaal—even if you are white—you are more likely to be stopped and searched than Steven.
Here is a list of my three favourite names
Haile Selassie –Ethiopian Emperor
Shoghi Effendi –Head of the Bahá'í Faith
Shaka Zulu– Zulu King
What are yours?
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