Chapter 6 of Freakonomics
is all about how parents name their children. One of the points made in the chapter is that
judgments are made (perhaps unfairly)by society based on our names, and that an
unusual name can serve as a handicap to a child. Do you agree with the book’s position? Have you any personal experience with this
topic? How did the book use the
experiment with the job applications to support the author’s position? The book later makes the case that a child
with an unusual or “typically Black” name isn’t a victim of a self fulfilling
prophecy, explaining that the unusual name was generally an indicator of the circumstances the child was born into,
more so than a cause of their outcome, and that low-income, low-education
parents have more of a tendency to name their child something unusual than
would a high-income, high- education parent.
The statistics in the book actually bear out this claim. Why do YOU believe this to be the case? To what period in history does the book trace
the trend of “typically black” baby names?
What point does the book make
about people who change their names and what it indicates? Girls names tend to
be more diverse than boys, as parents seem to be more adventurous with girls’
names. When looking at names across decades
you may notice that the “high end” white girls’ names eventually make
the list of most popular white girl names.
What does this tell you about what a majority of those parents believe
when it comes to naming children? Why do
the “high end” names become so popular?
What happens to the “high end” names when they DO become popular? This
book was originally written in 2005. Cross check the list of potential most
popular names of 2015 for boys and girls with the most recent twenty most
popular names list and see if you can find any overlap. How accurate were the books authors at their
prediction? In order to receive your
participation credit, you must answer all the questions and respond to at least
one of your classmates posts on the topic.
Please answer in complete sentences and remember that you are publishing
your comments for an audience.
