I like to think that I am pretty liberal. Although opinionated, I possess the ability to see the point of view of very opposite spectrums. This is why the article I read on Jezebel.com stirred up mixed emotions. In this article a Sudanese-Australian man named Agnok Lueth, was having the toughest time finding a job. He never got responses from his qualified resume. After much thought, he deduced that his troubles could be stemming from his very ethnic sounding name. So he decided to conduct an experiment. He sent out six resumes as “Daniel McLean”. A more simple, all American sounding name and shortly after he got five callbacks.

What is the conclusion to this experiment? His God given name was screwing with his money. So that means that he can either suffer through and hope that eventually someone will hire him despite their personal discriminations towards people. Or, legally change his name to something like Michael, or Bob and blend in (as best he can) into society.

I applied this same logic to Blacks who often have names that some people might consider unusual, different or just plain ghetto. We are also plagued with the same racial profiling by employers who assume from some of our names that we are much too ghetto for certain positions despite our work ethics, education or experience.

I have encountered the same profiling. My God given name is La’Juanda however I often use my middle name when job searching because it is much more simplistic in the way that you cannot determine my race based purely upon it. I also found that I received more call backs from using my middle name versus my first name.

Now there are plenty of arguments to be made here. One would be that my mother and other young minority mothers should not name their child… Well… for lack of a better description, ghetto names if they want them to be a success in our society. These are the rules that society has in place and we have to play by them if we want to have a successful career. Another argument is that certain members of our society should learn to be more open minded. That this is 2011 and they should no longer expect for everyone to fit into their closed minded, cookie cutter, mold. We are all unique and each come from different backgrounds and ethnic groups and it should not be expected for everyone to be replicas or attempt to mimic the traditional Caucasian in America experience.

These particular arguments beg the question: Could the name you give your child limit them in life? In a perfect world, I would say no. I would say that people who are meant to prosper will prosper regardless of their names, backgrounds, or personal issues. I do believe this. Unfortunately, I also think that our society has a way of screwing over minorities. There are people who are racist, classist, overly critical, stereotypical and use something like a person’s name as a reason to be prejudice towards them. They also may use it as a reason to make minorities lives more difficult than what they have to be by focusing on their differences and using that as the reason to treat them as second class citizens who are not privy to the same respect and success as Caucasians.

The truth of the matter is that if a minority is named a so called all American, simplistic name, they still will be subject to racism and prejudice based entirely on their ethnic background. I have had employers meet for an interview and appear surprised to see that I indeed was a Black woman. It is no secret that minorities have to work harder in order to be treated as equals. Using that rationale, I suppose it makes no sense to attempt to convert yourself or your children in order for them to be accepted by society. The issue here is that no one should be faced with that choice.

Will I name my future child a more urban-esqu name? No. There are a few reasons behind that. One being that I don’t prefer those types of names. The second being that I know the sick games that society plays. I want to give my kids a fighting chance against the least amount of discrimination as possible. What do you think?