A dive into the socio-linguistics of naming

 for those unfamiliar with the term, Think of socio-linguistics as the study of how "who you are" and "where you are" changes "how you talk." essentially, it is the intersection of sociology (the study of groups and power) and linguistics (the study of language).

In a more broader and anthropological sense, language separates us into ‘tribes’ of different social groups, As seen in ‘the F word’ with Dumas highlights the generational gap with how her parents kept their names, but she felt the need to change hers. 

Research from the UCLA found that immigrant parents are significantly more likely to give daughters "native-sounding" or English names than sons, to shield them from the extra judgment that many women face in school and hiring with more ‘exotic’ names. 

    As stated by Christina Sue and Edward Telles in their sociology research paper: ‘Assimilation and Gender in Naming’, they state that "for immigrants and their descendants, first names can be a powerful sociological indicator of sociocultural assimilation... they can be used to quantify the competing influences of two cultures." I have personally seen this within my own family, with my parents naming me and my brother more traditional Islamic names — ‘Sajid’ and ‘Mohammed’, compared to my sister with a more common American name of ‘Judy’.

this phenomenon is called the “Social curb appeal” It’s like the language version of a houses exterior and how people "appraise" you based on your name before you even get a chance to open your mouth. It all comes down to a concept i recently discovered called: Cognitive Fluency, which is just a fancy way of saying our brains are lazy and love things that are easy to process. A name with high curb appeal acts like a shortcut, making people feel instant "trust" because it sounds familiar (such as ‘judy’) in comparison so somthing that might sound more exotic (such as ‘sajid’).