Honors
Mr. Schutte
1/23/15
Naming Laws
Naming laws are different all over the world, from the United States very loose ones to
Denmark’s list of preapproved names. These laws project the very different societies of each country. More liberal societies such as the United States have looser laws; but in a more conservative society such as Iceland’s there are stricter laws. When naming a child people should have to consider the effects of the name on that child. People should have to get names approved by a board to name their child. Things to consider should be names that are offensive to the general public, or names that are too difficult on the language. The name of a child is something very important that will stick with them for the rest of their life. It should be carefully …show more content…
This can mean many things from just a misbehaved child to trouble with the law. In boys it can lead to severe emotional disturbance. It has also been seen to be affiliated with trouble with the law. Larson says that “unpopular names are positively correlated with juvenile delinquency in both blacks and whites.” (Larson)If you can keep kids out of jail with something as simple as a name, why wouldn’t you?
The bias on names goes so far as to limit peoples prospective jobs people with names that sounded ethnic, sounded anything other than AngloSaxon made it much harder to get a job.
Tammy Kabell, a resume consultant, has often seen how names are perceived in her line of work.
“I’ve had frank discussions with HR managers and hiring managers in the corporate world, and
they tell me when they see a name that’s ethnic or a black name, they perceive that person as having low education or coming from a lower socioeconomic class,” she said." (Tahmincioglu) If we had a system that only allowed certain names then there would be no way of knowing whether a name came from a lowincome family or not, then there would be no room for