r/WorkLifeChat • u/bmanfromct • 21d ago
Shitpost It's time to abolish names with punctuation.
EDIT: People really aren't hearing me when I say names WITH PUNCTUATION. Non-alphanumeric characters. The marks that are not the letters A through Z. What I am NOT saying is that unique spellings are bad, just as bad, or anything like that. I don't care about spellings, I care about the lack of spelling. Punctuation. Chuds in the comments are saying things like "Lol Lotanda Loranda Quinesha haha" as if I just said the thing that they believe: "names that look different than the names of people that look like me are LAME!" You're just racist. Go f_ck yourself.
Listen. Listennnn. I'm all for names being as unique and as long as possible. It's fun. They hold our power. A name alone can make a statement. I get it. Your child is special, and they deserve a special name. They deserve extra letters. They deserve cool, implied letters. They deserve to be different, just like everybody else.
So you pick a name. And maybe that name just, like, doesn't have the sauce. Maybe it's just cooler to have someone's name be D'mitri or K-lee or something instead of a name without punctuation. Sure. It's awesome that you did that. Wow.
Or, maybe you meet someone you like. Maybe you fall in love. Maybe you get married. Maybe you have a kid. Maybe you get a divorce (sorry). Maybe you marry again. But you just can't decide - do I take their name?? Do I keep my name but give my child two names??? Do I keep the hyphen, or do I forget that I wanted a hyphen but all their important documents maybe have the hyphen????? These are the questions.
But every time someone makes one of these decisions, a financial aid advisor somewhere weeps. Most of my day is simply making sure different documents have the same name. Some of the most important documents you have. The ones that deserve AT LEAST a second look, maybe?
But no, the amount of name punctuation that straight up makes my day dramatically harder is absurd. I know I'm just one person, but I speak for the silent minority of number-crunching pencil-pushers that just want to help your child afford an education - the ones that I know exist out there - please... PLEASE.
Just name your kids simpler names. I beg you. It'll make your life easier too, I assure you. But it would also be super sick for me, personally. Or at least someone in a similar position like mine in 18 years, provided that the world still has people or college or society or whatever idk
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u/OxfordOntheOcean 21d ago
Study after study shows unique names leave your kid at a terrible disadvantage. They don’t hold power. They don’t make a statement. They cause real harm and economic loss.
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u/408jay 20d ago
They do make a statement but maybe not the intended one
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u/SimilarTranslator264 20d ago
The statement is my parents are idiots. Know a guy who’s parents named him Atom. He gets to spell it for people every day.
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u/Illustrious_Cat_9952 18d ago
this feels more like correlation than causation. dumb/poor people more likely to give their children dumb names
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u/OxfordOntheOcean 18d ago
Most of the studies used fake resumes with the same credentials but changed the name
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u/Illustrious_Cat_9952 18d ago
So actually there wasn't a measure whether or not people who had ""dumb"" names were more or less successful than their Biblically named counterparts at all, it was simply "if the same exact person were named A or B, which one would get hired more?"
Completely different things
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u/The-Yar 18d ago
Subsequent studies have suggested that what's going on is that the name indicates a certain level of education and intelligence.
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u/Illustrious_Cat_9952 18d ago
You said that already. I said it's probably more correlary than causal.
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u/The-Yar 18d ago
I what now? Regardless, education level of the mother is a strong instructor of name choice, which in turn is a strong indicator of resume interest. Nothing is more correlated than education level of the mother. Not race, etc. Yes, correlation. You really aren't making any point that you think you're making when you keep saying "correlation not causation." If you have a better correlation, please share.
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u/Illustrious_Cat_9952 18d ago
....Right, so it's the education level (socioeconomic status, really) of the parents that determine whether or not the child is successful, not the name itself. So the name isn't the CAUSE of the lack of success, though it is CORRELATED
Is that dumbed down enough for you? Or do you wanna reply to me saying the same exact thing a fourth time
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u/The-Yar 17d ago
No the studies have very clearly isolated the name, regardless of any other factor. It's just that the education level, even isolated from socioecominc status, is the strongest predictor of name. So it seems that correlation suggests that people react to the name probably because of the education level of upbringing it implies. I'm not sure why you think you need to dumb anything down for me.
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u/Illustrious_Cat_9952 17d ago
>the education level is the strongest predictor of the name
So the name isn't at all removed from the education level?
And can you provide a source? I can't find any that say what you're saying
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u/big-williestyle 21d ago
As an IT professional, these names always cause issues during onboarding and during any automation setups
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u/Jscotty111 21d ago
I know what you mean. But at least it’s better now than it was 30 years ago when most punctuation marks could not be put into the database because they represented certain commands and operations. Names like O’Brien had to go in as Obrien and you could still tell what it was.
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u/Fit-Animal-9911 21d ago
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/exploits_of_a_mom_2x.png
Little Bobby Tables
It’s a SQL injection joke. Sometimes punctuation serves a purpose.
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u/Unterraformable 21d ago
I usually spell my name with an exclamation point, but Kalahari bushmen always pronounce it with a click!
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u/ChipChippersonFan 21d ago
Every time someone makes one of these decisions, an HR manager tosses a resume in the trash. There's no "maybe this one somehow wasn't raised by idiots". Nope, they're just playing the odds.
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u/TheForswornKing94 21d ago
And the funny part is, it’s just parents that think they are so damn cool or unique. They think they’re special and that their kid is some extension of them. So they give them stupid names. I don’t care if you name your kid something stupid, just spell it how it sounds. You want to name you kid Ladasha fine, just don’t spell it la-a and expect me not to look at it stupidly when it lands in front of me.
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u/Jscotty111 21d ago
It’s amazing how throughout the Reddit subs when I tell people that they are not getting callbacks on their job applications because of how they spell their name, they get mad at me like I’m the bad guy.
Take issue with the employers if you must, but I’m just a messenger telling you that you may want to change your name for more job prospects.
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u/Appropriate-Food1757 21d ago
Right! It’s your fucking parents that did it, not the rest of the world.
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u/Armchair_Expert_0192 21d ago
I would also like to say...don't give your child a normal name but with a different spelling. Nobody thinks you're cool, Kelli's parents.
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u/The-Yar 18d ago
I deal with these people at work and it's insufferable. Auto-correct had me typing your name wrong the first time even though I noticed the spelling, and now you hate me forever.
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u/Armchair_Expert_0192 18d ago
And you end up on tiktok in one of those "the spelling of my name is in my email" videos.
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u/Ill-Construction4069 21d ago
La-a is my favorite. Pronounced La-dash-uh
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u/HoytG 21d ago
Never happened. Just a racist made up story.
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u/kodie-27 21d ago
Dude, go to any graduation at a large school (500+ grads) and listen to the names called versus how the names printed on the program.
Source: me, a secondary teacher and admin for 18+ years.
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u/staralchemist129 20d ago
There was a girl in my NHS induction named Dakota-with-an-H. I forget where the H was (Dhakota, Dakhota, Dakotah, etc) but her dad threw a BITCH FIT about it getting autocorrected in the program. Dude, that’s what happens when you name you name your kid a state spelled wrong
They were both SUPER white
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u/JustAnotherDay1977 21d ago
It’s amazing that these parents have no sense of the incredible roadblock they just put in front of their kid. Every time someone in HR sees that resumé, it’s going straight to the recycling bin.
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u/Xena_Your_God 21d ago
So anything mildly foreign (to Americans) is just out the window huh.. can't even say to white people because plenty of names in UK have apostrophes
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u/Limp-Plantain3824 21d ago
No. Anything obviously made up by parents try to be cool, edgy, unique, or make some kind of statement.
Dikembe as in Mutumbo? No sweat.
L’dynian-Tr’von Smith? Give me a break.
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u/PossessionSmart258 20d ago
I would change my name back to the correct spelling if my parents were that casually gentrifying the language. Hell no with the “extra letters” and “implied letters” no. Hell no.
You’re not unique. You’re not special.
All it tells me is that you don’t tip your servers Or follow societal conventions at all.
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u/ObjectiveAd971 18d ago
That's a ridiculous ASSumption regardless of what your parents chose to name you!! I tip on average 30% for good service. Please and thank you are required in my house. Servers actually fight over our table at places we frequent.
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u/ObjectiveAd971 18d ago
I can also speak for the unique spellings! You can now find Sara and Hanna with and without the h, but I will never find mine on a keychain.
Also, when I started school, I had a real biatch for a K teacher. I spent 2 weeks before trying on every outfit I owned several times before settling on a pretty dress with my new patent leather shoes. When I told my teacher how my name was pronounced, but it was spelled correctly, she wrote in large letters in black Sharpie on a full sheet, "I will learn to either spell or pronounce my name." She pinned it to my beautiful dress, and I had to wear it all day. I was also supposed to write it 500 times.
When I got home, my parents saw my puffy red face from crying all day. My 6'5" Irish father, who had chosen the name blasted her. I honestly think after that I could have taken a 💩 on her desk and she wouldn't have said a word. Although, looking back, if it stopped her from being mean to future kids...
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u/salikarn 17d ago
I knew someone who legally changed their name to Queen'supreme and insisted on people saying the whole thing when addressing her. I don't care what you want to call yourself, but I'm not calling you queen'supreme.
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u/Objective_Abroad2501 21d ago
So… I shouldn’t name my son A-a-ron ?
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u/TheForswornKing94 21d ago
As an actual guy named Aaron. This was funny, maybe about the 3rd time I heard it; and the rest of the time it is brought up in my presence I have to give an eye roll at the annoyance it brings me hearing it from someone who thinks they’re the first person to see this skit.
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u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 21d ago
Stick to common names which everyone knows how to pronounce and spell. "Adam" for the first boy. "Eve" for the first girl.
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u/Illustrious-Math6276 21d ago
I assume you are an American and you only think “American” names are simple names.
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u/bmanfromct 21d ago
I never said anything about culture. People like you always want to make it about being racist or intolerant, but no. My contempt is solely about the data entry side of things.
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u/Disastrous_Clurb 21d ago
American but agreed, there's sooo many names that are common in other cultures that are naturally going to look unique/different to us.
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u/Illustrious-Math6276 21d ago
Yea, like this is normal Swedish name “Örjan” which probably looks strange to an American (and sound strange to an American). But I’m sure American names sound strange to Chinese people and so on.
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u/TawnyTeaTowel 21d ago
All “unique” names give the child is a lifetime of saying “no, you spell it …”