- Arent you so sick of me calling your name full#
- Arent you so sick of me calling your name professional#
And the ripple effects from that are much more adverse, signalling to the individual that they're less important, that they're less valued.” “What makes it detrimental is the chronic pattern of doing this consistent mispronunciation. Other people can see it as, ‘oh, it's not that big of a deal’,” says Myles Durkee, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who specialises in race, identity and cultural code-switching. “ can go under the radar for a lot of individuals. There are also those who use their real names, only to have people repeatedly mispronounce them. But this can have consequences: Zhao says he uncovered a pattern showing the use of an ‘Anglo’ name is associated with lower levels of self-esteem, which can also be an indicator for lower levels of health and wellbeing. Zhao’s recent research showed that about half of Chinese international students surveyed who attend US universities had adopted Anglicised versions of their given names to make it easier for others to pronounce them.
Arent you so sick of me calling your name professional#
Some also use nicknames or Anglicised names in professional or social environments. (The researchers found those who “whitened” their resumés were twice as likely to get call-backs for an interview, compared to those who left ethnic details intact.)
According to research from Stanford University and the University of Toronto, nearly half of black and Asian job applicants who altered their resumés did so by changing the presentation of their name in an effort to erase any racial cues. Harris has made a point of correcting mispronunciations publicly, sending an important signal that there’s no excuse for failing to master names – and serving as a role model for those who want to reclaim their identities.Ĭhanging one’s name to fit in happens more often than some may think, especially on resumés. In some cases, they present as apparently wilful errors used to suggest ‘otherness’, or draw attention to her ethnicity. Harris, the first female, black and Asian American to serve as US vice-president, has faced consistent mispronunciations of her name. Yet the care we take to get names right is a topic increasingly under scrutiny as Kamala Harris takes office in the US. “You are not important in this environment, so why should I take time and my effort to learn it?” It sends a message that “you are minimal”, says Zhao. Xian Zhao, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto whose research focuses on ethnic name pronunciation, says that although many people don’t realise it, habitually pronouncing an unfamiliar name incorrectly is a form of implicit discrimination. “I hate that I don't put myself first in those moments, but sometimes I think we do this to keep the peace because there are so many other things that we have to deal with and we just let those things go.”
“I feel like I'm a spoil sport if I say, ‘actually, I don't think that's funny’,” says Duncan, 43. Then there was the co-worker who sang Duncan’s name to the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: “Na-Na-Na-BAAAAAA.” No one else’s name became a musical spectacle, just hers. At another get-together, a guest explained that her name was hard to pronounce and unilaterally reverted to ‘Nana’ instead. “She really, really acted like I had just come from another country… I really felt like I was so foreign to her,” says Duncan, who has lived in Toronto for more than 40 years.
Arent you so sick of me calling your name full#
She got a lot of support – but she also still faces struggles.Ī woman at a party insisted she could never pronounce Duncan’s full first name, laughing instead at how different it was and asking where she was from. She put a name pronouncer in her email signature, and patiently corrected people when they didn’t get it quite right. When you’re done with this article, check out our full list of the year’s top stories.Ĭanadian radio host Nana aba Duncan decided a decade ago she no longer wanted to go by nicknames and instead reclaim her full Ghanaian name, pronounced Nuh-NAA-buh. As we head into 2022, Worklife is running our best, most insightful and most essential stories from 2021.
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