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DanArmak comments on Post ridiculous munchkin ideas! - Less Wrong
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So I've recently decided to change my real name from an oriental one to John Adams. I am not white.
There’s a significant amount of evidence that shows that
(1) Common names have better reception in many areas, especially publication and job interviews.
(2) White names do significantly better than non-white names
(3) Last names that begin with the early letters of the alphabet have a significant advantage over last names beginning with the latter letters of the alphabet.
Source :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19020207 http://blog.simplejustice.us/files/66432-58232/SSQUKalistFinal.pdf http://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/sunrpe/2006_0013.html http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873.pdf?new_window=1 http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
Therefore if I were to use "John", one of the most common 'white' first names, along with Adams, a 'white' surname that also begins with the letter A, it should stand that I would be conferred a number of advantages.
Furthermore, I have very little attachment to my family heritage. Switching names doesn’t cost me anything beyond a minor inconvenience of having to do paperwork. For some people, changing your name may be extremely worthwhile, depending on your current name, and how attached you are to it. At least, it may be worthwhile to consider it, and depending on the person, may be a very cheap optimization with significant benefits.
This sounds like an excellent idea. I'm going to take the liberty of discussing my own name and I hope to get some opinions.
My surname, 'Armak', is a misspeling of Ermak, sometimes written Yermak. I have no love lost for this name. Its main effect on my life is that when I introduce myself, people respond with "Daniel What?". And people who see it written in Hebrew always pronounce it wrong (because Hebrew normally has no written vowels, it's very bad at transliteration of foreign names). It would be an ordinary name in Russia or Ukraine, but I'm unlikely to even visit those countries.
So I want to choose a common name that is "at home" in Hebrew and English and, preferably, Russian. Something short and simple that can be pronounced by speakers of pretty much any language, in case I associate with Chinese in the future, or something similarly unexpected.
But I'm very much afraid of bureaucratic hassle. It's easy to change a name, but records with the old name will follow me all my life. And I'm afraid that many organizations deal poorly with people who try to prove that their name changed and they should have access to their accounts or records opened under their old names.
On the other hand, most Western women and a few men change their names when they marry (and sometimes when they divorce). And this presumably doesn't create big difficulties, because it's socially expected. So maybe the infrastructure for name-changing already exists and my fears are unfounded.
Has this been quantified? Like surveying people who changed their legal names (other than when marrying or divorcing) after a few years.
Disclaimer: I haven't been serious enough to invest the time to research this myself.
You don't find that surnames in Hebrew just get mispronounced a ton, in general? Other than ones which have standard pronunciation, I encounter constant errors with people trying to figure out which vowels to put where when it comes to last names, although that may be biased because my last name, despite being very straightforward in English, is a puzzle for Israelis.
Also, from anecdotal data and a bit of personal knowledge, changing your last name here in Israel doesn't seem like much of a hassle, other than having to do it in person.
Foreign ones do, certainly. That's why I'd be looking for one that's familiar to speakers of both Hebrew and English.
My dad changed his name when he became a citizen...and got sufficiently annoyed at the hassle that he changed his name back. Note - this wasn't a major name change, he changed it from "Amarjit Singh Jolly" to "Jolly Amarjit Singh"
To give you one anecdotal account in the U.S., my mother changed her last name after my parent's divorce (not to her maiden name) and hasn't seemed to have any problems purchasing a house, dealing with her bank accounts, medical bills and (recently) applying for social security.