Not too long ago, it was taken for granted that some immigrants to the United States should anglicize their names. Although the myth that most immigrants from Europe had their names changed while passing through Ellis Island has now been debunked, it is true that some migrants, many of them Jews confronted with antisemitism, did change their names after arrival. Similarly, immigrants from Asia have felt the need to adopt English names for the ease of monolingual Americans who could not properly pronounce names from countries such as China, Vietnam, or South Korea.
To this day, the ritual of becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States still includes the opportunity for the new citizen to change their name. I immigrated to this country from Nigeria at age 14, and when I was naturalized, I faced enormous pressure both from family members and from others to change my name from Ifeoma. (I declined to do so).
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In 2004, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan published a now-famous field experiment they conducted to test racial discrimination in hiring. They responded with fictitious résumés to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. They assigned each résumé either a very African American–sounding name (think Lakisha and Jamal) or a very White-sounding name (think Emily or Greg). One result: In general, résumés with White (read European) names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Bertrand and Mullainathan also found that the amount of discrimination was the same across occupations and industries.
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If there were any doubt that this social discrimination still exists, just consider the minimally veiled racist remarks Tucker Carlson made about Judge Jackson’s African name while questioning her credentials. “So, is Ketanji Brown Jackson—a name that even Joe Biden has trouble pronouncing—one of the top legal minds in the entire country?” he asked. In the world of Fox News, an African name alone is disqualifying.
