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Subscribe to RSSIf you’re not getting ahead at work, and your name is difficult to pronounce, you might want to consider changing it.
New research suggests having a simple, easy-to-pronounce name may help you win allies and favor in the workplace.
“People tend to feel more positive about things that are easy to process mentally, and with work colleagues that means better relationships,” said Adam L. Alter, an assistant professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, who collaborated on the study with Peter Koval of the University of Leuven, Belgium, and Simon M. Laham of the University of Melbourne in Australia.
The academics analyzed 500 first and last names of U.S. lawyers at firms of varying sizes and found that those with names that are easier to pronounce rise up the ranks of their companies more quickly. The same outcome is likely in other industries, Alter said.
Another facet of the research looked at the name-pronunciation effect for names from a number of regions, including Asian, Western and Eastern European nations. Using a mock ballot with names of varying complexity, all taken from each of the regions in order to avoid ethnic biases, the results suggested that people with names that are easier to pronounce are more likely to be favored for political office and job promotions.
The research builds on an earlier study by Alter that found that companies with simpler names tend to outperform similar stocks with more complex names on their market debuts.
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Hmmm, my conclusion from these studies is that there are a lot of illiterate morons out there who can't figure out basic phonetics, so they promote those with easy names to pronounce. Lovely!
You are absolutely right. What's sad is how privileged idiots get all the good jobs and intelligent people can get stuck at wal mart due to the way our society and economy works. If college were a knowledge based thing and not a money based thing, our country would make more revenue and the money formerly gained by college institutions would pay for itself.
I hate to break it to you RandomFox, but if the Walmart people were as smart as you claim they'd figure out how to outsmart the "privileged idiots".
I've been inside a Walmart and I'm pretty confident in saying that the people who work there aren't exactly rocket scientists.
This is not news, Hollywood has known this for decades. That is why many actors and actresses change their names when they start performing. Complicated, hard to pronounce names are harder for them to market. The fact that this same principle crosses over to the business world should not be a surprise to anyone.
Spider, phonetics only get you so far when it comes to names. For example, phonetics won't do you any good for Siobhan (more or less pronounced "shiv-awn"). It's a great, traditional Irish name and I don't mean to knock it, but phonetics are useless. The same for the lovely, traditional Scottish name Eilidh (Ay-lee). And these are traditional, historical names -- I'm not even touching today's totally made up names. I'm not trying to justify the promotion of people based on the easy of saying their names, but you are wrong that a simple understanding of phonetics (or lack thereof) is the problem.
Peter Parker has the proportional pronunciation ability of a spider!
Basic phonics don't work for a lot of names. Duh.
I have a somewhat difficult name to pronounce and took on a nickname when joining my company as a base level employee. I'm now the president...maybe some truth to this.
Wait is that why I am still entry level after 20 years?
Signed
Tikki Tikki Tembo-no Sa Rembo-chari Bari Ruchi-pip Peri Pembo
And they didn't just call you Tikki?
Well Tikki could be pronounced (ti-shawn) ya never know
So sapienti sat what is your real name, Dicklesswonder? I guess they call just call you "Dick" now huh?
@WeRthrough
You sir do not belong on Newsvine. The majority of your postings are nothing more than insults and barely hidden racial slurs. Maybe you should move along.
WeRthrough, you are suspended for a day for violating rule # 1 of the Code of Honor.
I have an easy-to-pronounce name and still had a manager (not mine, thank goodness) decide it was 'too long' and he was going to call me something else. He did the same thing to a couple of other women too. If the name was more than one syllable, he renamed that person.
We all simply refused to acknowledge him when he spoke to us. 'Oh, I didn't realize you were talking to me -- my name is not Whatever He Decided to Call Us.'
Good for you !!!
Imagine the overbearing audacity of someone telling "you" to "change YOUR name?"
That person's picture should be in the DICKtionary under "handjob".
Umm .. sex harassment, race and age discrimination, gender bias ... Add name abuse to the list. How do you pronounce Prince's love symbol??
They didn't tell you to change your name. They said that it was coincidental that people with easy to pronounce names advanced better.
The very first sentence in the article suggests changing your name if it is hard to pronounce.
"suggests" but doesn't "tell" you to.
Yadiya - I was working for my college paper when Prince changed his name to that symbol that didn't have a pronunciation. He even sent out little computer disks with a .jpg of the symbol because the one he was using wasn't something he made up and wasn't otherwise available. We just callled him "glyph," or sometimes, "that dumb**s musician."
The best rule is, "Be yourself and be proud of it!"
Don't allow this geeks to mold you in to a plastic, make-believe phony!"
They can take all their "studies and reports" and shove 'em. At the end of the day, we shouldn't attempt to "pretend or act like something we are not".
Honesty is the best policy.
"Honesty is the best policy."
You will never make it in the business world.
Why should anyone change their name? I would never change or shorten my name bacause some idiot couldn't pronouce it.
It's great to have principles of a hard to pronounce name at the bottom of the totem pole. And it stinks down there - because of all of the @!$%#s above you. Err, not stinks, it is aromatic down there.
What about somebody who couldn't remember it so they ignored you or overlooked you?
"Na-i-na-na-jad. Nainanajad. It's not so hard."
I won't comment on the fairly obvious undertone that white folks in power tend to like promoting people who look like they do -- er, that is, whose names sound like theirs...
...woops.
It's a white phenomenon, apparently. Because, of course, only white's can be racists, right Dave?
If you read the article, a study cited looked at a variety of ethnic groups, using names that originated within each ethnic group, and they consistently found similar results, that easier names -- even easier Asian names among Asian people -- are favored. Reducing the issue to "white people are inherently racist" is not only unnecessarily inflammatory, but it also ignores the evidence. Not everything is simply about racism.
All races promote their own. Its not just whites. I travel a lot in my job and have noticed predominantly white offices, predominantly black, and predominantly Indian. Its not just whites. Nice try though ;)
I used to work at a newspaper publishing company where the publisher, all of the managing editors and senior executives had names that were two 'first names' (ex.: Mark Davis, Tony Michael, Alice James, etc.). Those of us with less generic last names were convinced we had no chance of advancement. Turned out it was just a phase.
Guess I should drop the idea of giving my kids traditional Scandinavian names to celebrate our heritage. :/
ORRRRRR, people with funny names just aren't as ambitious or smart as the the others.
Here is my guess as to why......
Parents who NAME their children odd names are MORE apt to be LESS educated.
One of the posters mentioned difficult to pronounce traditional scottish names. I would imagine that his example represents a VERY small percentage of those in this trial.
You missed my point. My comment was in direct response to Spider blaming it on a poor understanding of phonetics. My point was, phonetics don't always help. The traditional Scottish name was only used as an example of a name where phonetics would be no help in figuring out pronunciation. I was not suggesting names of that variety had anything to do with the study.
Not sure exactly what your point was supposed to be, so I will refrain from commenting on it.
How true. Names like LeBron...TuWanda...made up names are pathetic. However, I believe the article also references last names, and we have very little control over our last name. You can change it, but that's almost like turning your back on your heritage.
Don't forget the most ridiculously diffucult name to decipher of all time: Krzyzewski.
Honestly, how do you get the pronounciation "che-chefsky" out of KRZYZEWSKI?"
Lord have Mercy.
Dont get me started on polish names. My friends name is spelled Pinkzewski, pronounced Pin ches key
Actually even that is simplified. The proper Polish pronunciation is something more like Kshih-SHEF-skee.
I think things are a bit different in academia. If a researcher has a unique name, it is much easier for people to find his/her research on search engines. I know my husband gets annoyed because he has a really common first and last name, so trying to find him online is difficulty unless you put in a lot of other specific terms. But for me, I use my maiden name (long, Greek and very unique!) professionally. From searching for myself online, I think I may be the only person in the country (at least only one with an online presence) with my name. So, finding my research would be a lot easier for people. I think what these researchers observed about names may not apply to all career fields.
So which category does Barack Obama fall under?
This article is stupid. Be proud of your name.
Actually I think that this study is quite accurate.
No one needs to "change" their name but there are many that have got the clue; once folks start saying "how do you say that again" and it continues you are obviously the odd person out.
So "be true to your roots" but have the common sense to understand that your "label" doesn't fit and as in my case Bill works better than William for both me and others. I didn't give anything up by being just "Bill."
Hmmm. I was named Laetitia, the Latin word for "joy" that had been used in my good old anglo family for generations. It was beautiful, it got shortened to "Titia" (Teesha) and then devolved to Tish, Tisha or Trish depending on the laziness of some people who just couldn't or wouldn't remember Laetitia. In my wedding ceremony, even the minister whom I'd known for years, called me "Tish" during the vows. By the time I was 35 I had heard every variation you can think of. But when a nurse came out to the waiting room one day, looked at my chart and said in a loud voice, "Lolita??" I had had enough and legally changed my name the following week.
Thank heaven my Mom gave me an easy name to pronounce.....Judith!
The worst is when people mangle a fairly short and simple that's not even spelled all that differently from the traditional.
/this has totally happened irl
That must not apply at the california DMV. Every one of them I have been to has a sign with the office supervisors name.
Rangnunijangapour Patel. Substitute Singh for Patel if you're in the bay area.
This comment is pretty funny; if only because it's so true. Oh and I think I counted 12 pages of "Nguyen" in the phone book?
Sometimes, giving a child a name can mark them as being from a certain socio economic class. This can be a burden to a person's success. No matter how open minded you may consider yourself to be, the consensus of majority opinion may not be so. I am just saying, that's all.
Having a difficult to pronounce name makes for a distance between people. Names=faces=personal relationships. Any obstacles in that equation can cause a disconnect. That is one reason that so many new Americans give their first generation born children common English names.
And, it is not just because other people are stupid and can't pronounce the names. Some names just defy pronounciation by anyone out side of the culture. European and American names are probably just as difficult for someone outside of the culture. No doubt that it goes both ways.
If I'm running a business, I'm going to hire people who I think are competent according to my own experience and perception, and also who I think I'll be able to relate to and get along with. No one wants to work with someone they can't relate to, especially when there are more important things to do than waste time stumbling over cultural differences. And even if they have a simple name, it might remind me of particular jerk or idiot from grade school and that will affect the relationship. A fancy or uniquely spelled name usually gets up all kinds of negative emotions in me for a host of reasons. And that's OK because someone else can hire the good people that I'll pass over. But in the end, my day to day work experience will be better when I'm comfortable with the people I hire on my own terms. Everyone is allowed to make their own bed when they have to sleep in it.
See through, you're going to get left behind if you only hire people who are culturally like you. That tactic only will work for you if you expect to only have 2-3 employees for the rest of your life. Why hire the guy who is most like you when you can hire the smartest guy? You need as many diverse inputs as possible to make it in today's world.
And I always thought YYAWannaNO was fairly easy to pronounce! Thanks a lot mom & dad! :-(