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Comment by eplanit | Hacker News Reader

Did they try "redneck" names like "Elrod", "Rusty", or "Betty Jo"?

Exactly. See my other comment in this thread. The names they chose are unusual at a glance, and it might be that the 2% variance they see is due to some groups of names unintentionally having higher perceived social status or other attributes.

For example, some of the first names are "Lashonda", "Lakeisha", "Takwanda" in the "Black" list, whereas the "white" list includes names like "Geoffrey", "Kristen", "Jennifer". If the perceived social status of the names isn't matched, that could invalidate their results.

As a follow-up, it would be interesting to do a survey on the perceived social status of each of the names they used to see how that might have influenced the results.

I don't see how what you're proposing is even possible. The names themselves are tied with the race due to the incidence of people of certain races being named certain things. If you accept racism as a social construct then it would necessarily impact social status, thus making the entire exercise to "control" for it moot.

I think what they are implying is that of there were socially distinct class markers for black names as there are for white names, and if you looked at both, there would be a spread between upper class blacks and whites and lower class blacks and whites. That may be neither here nor there with regard to this discussion.

I understand that.

What I'm saying is that even if that were true, unless you're saying only "objectively" Black and White people are to judge the social status of Black and White names (such that each race judges their own name) - it would end up being no different than the exercise in the paper.

For example:

Let's say Denise is an "high status" Black name and LeShawn is a "low status" Black name. "Billy" is low status White and "Alexander" is high status.

Even if you knew this you'd need to know how the other race perceives the name since that's ultimately what's being judged here, hence it would be moot.

> Even if you knew this you'd need to know how the other race perceives the name since that's ultimately what's being judged here, hence it would be moot.

And that could be done through research surveys to account for that variable in this research.

I'm still not understanding what magical survey could separate the class aspect of a name from the race aspect. Since Black people can discriminate against other Black people and Black names both racism and classism can be "double counted", thus the exercise is pointless as there's no way to separate the two things.

Perhaps if Black people and White people had a "pure" view of other Blacks and Whites, unaffected by history you could do what you're saying.

Well, if we're trying to split racism from classism, you could try to create names that are equally perceived as being from a particular race, but differently perceived in social class. For example "Lashonda Brown" vs "Shonda Brown" vs "Shawna Brown" vs "Shawna E. Brown". Another confounding issue is that names perceived as "higher status" are not necessarily used by one particular race. For example, "Charlotte", "Elizabeth", "Caroline", are not obviously white or black.

Another example, to split racism from classism but with the confounding variable of national origin: "Lashonda Brown" vs "Abena Nwachukwu" (this is an actual last name that I Googled). On the resume, both could be given membership in a "Women's Society of Some University" to indicate gender, and same for other characteristics.

Edit: Note that even the SPELLING of "Geoffrey" vs "Jeffrey" vs "Jeff" may indicate something about social class or background.

Random source, I didn't keep all my tabs open: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-elites-top-50-baby-names

I mentioned this in the sibling comment, but it still doesn't seem possible. Who's determining these social class tiers? Black people? White people? Either way, there's no way to control for the status as the names themselves are already indicators irrespective of the social status.

In other words, you're trying to separate racism from classism, but race and class are already inexorably linked to begin with. Any perception of class to the name would already be influenced by historical racism, for better or for worse.

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