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Economist Steven D. Levitt writes in Slate in an excerpt from his upcoming book Freakonomics: The data show that, on average, a person with a distinctively black name—whether it is a woman named Imani or a man named DeShawn—does have a worse life outcome than a woman named Molly or a man named Jake. But it isn't the fault of his or her name. If two black boys, Jake Williams and DeShawn Williams, are born in the same neighborhood and into the same familial and economic circumstances, they would likely have similar life outcomes. But the kind of parents who name their son Jake don't tend to live in the same neighborhoods or share economic circumstances with the kind of parents who name their son DeShawn. And that's why, on average, a boy named Jake will tend to earn more money and get more education than a boy named DeShawn. DeShawn's name is an indicator—but not a cause—of his life path. Still, while it's unlikely names have a big effect, Levitt apparently didn't look at siblings, like economist David Figlio did recently. In contrast, Figlio found an adverse effect to naming your kid Jamal instead of James. As Levitt writes: What kind of parent is most likely to give a child such a distinctively black name? The data offer a clear answer: an unmarried, low-income, undereducated, teenage mother from a black neighborhood who has a distinctively black name herself. Giving a child a super-black name would seem to be a black parent's signal of solidarity with her community—the flip side of the "acting white" phenomenon. White parents, meanwhile, often send as strong a signal in the opposite direction. More than 40 percent of the white babies are given names that are at least four times more common among whites. So, it's not impossible that naming your kid Jamal sends him a message that you want him to "act black" while naming his brother James sends him a message you want him to "act white." By the way, my article on the most hyped element within Levitt's Freakonomics, his theory that legalizing abortion cut crime, will be out to electronic subscribers to The American Conservative this weekend.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer