Levitt And Dubner: The Power Of A Name

This explains how an aspect as simple as a name can greatly affect a person's personality, and features through life. Having knowledge of the heritage that makes a person who they are will greatly improve possibilities on how to improve upon and give acclaim to

In order to find his identity he went against his parent’s wishes in attending Columbia, but instead attending Yale. But before he set off for college he went through the legal process of changing his name. To his surprise it was a very mechanical task. His reasoning to the judge for the change “I hate the name Gogol, “he says I’ve always hated it.” “Very well”, the judge says stamping and signing the form, then returning it to the clerk. He is told the notice of the new name must be given to all other agencies, and that it’s his responsibility to notify the Registry of Motor Vehicles, banks, schools” (102). Although the moment in the courtroom was not as momentous as he had imagined, he stepped in there as Gogol Gangouli and left as Nikhil Gangouli in twenty minutes. A moment he waited eighteen years for finally arrived. Now that he is free of his parents and his old name, he can now be confident, especially with women in introducing himself without anticipating unwelcomed questions about his name.

Compare and contrast the ways Cisneros and Piercy feel about names in general and their own names in the Vignette “My Name” and the poem “’If I had been called Sabrina or Ann,’ she said.” Comment on the language and language techniques used.

What really is in a name? Apparently, there is a lot. In Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s story, "What's in a Name," there is a telling story about a young boy learning the powerful pain and humiliation in the racist practices of American society. Gates illustrates how racism can perpetuate prejudice that aims to take away individual identity and put entire groups of people down. Yet, the fact that Skip was willing to never look Mr. Wilson in the yes again shows that Gates himself was not going to just take the racism any longer, but was willing to fight it in his own unique way.

In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison spins an intricate web between names and numbers for the reader to unravel. The deep connection that lies between names and numbers is a direct correspondence to the identity and worth of black people during slavery. Beloved begins with the identity of the house which is characterized by a number. The house is given a temperament as if it is a living, breathing entity and yet it still referred to as a number. The significance of this is symbolic to the plight of the black slaves. Regarded as little above the common animal, slaves were defined by their selling price, essentially they were reduced to a number. Viewed as nonbeings they nevertheless feel and suffer their place in the south. The character Beloved is similar in this regard as well. All that defines her is an age and a name that remains unfluctuating through time. In an insufferable and cruel world, names and numbers play a critical role in understanding the identity of black existence in the South. To uncover the implications and nuances that names and numbers play will be instrumental to delving into the lives of black slaves. Beloved contains a vast amount of names and numbers and the connections between them deepen the novel and provide mammoth insight into understanding and interpreting Morrison’s work and purpose for juxtaposing such elaborate bonds between names and numbers.

My name, Daryl Naquin, Jr., represents the fascinating social attitude that males are considered to be the carriers of the family legacy. I contribute to the trend that Virginia Postrel mentions of boys’ names changing slower due to the influence of custom. Unless I were to change my name in the future, which is highly unlikely, this social duty is something that I will inevitably carry out if I were to have a family of my own. I represent my dad, my family, our values, and our aspirations. Moreover, it is interesting to consider the belief across many cultures that one can “stain” the family

A small family of four, living in the Tory town of Redding. Life was great Mr. and Mrs. Meeker owned a small tavern that supplies their town with food, rum, and supplies. Their son Timmy helped around the tavern and did chores, because his older brother Sam was off at college. Everyone in Redding was close and knew the Meeker family, they all admired how they had raised Sam and Timmy. Every year after college was over, Sam would come home and visit, except one.

By simply referring to the four main characters by their appellation—the mother, the son, the daughter, and the father— it is shown that this isn’t the story of only one family; this is the story of numerous families that were uprooted and torn apart during this period of Japanese internment and discrimination. These four nameless characters can be any Japanese person in the United States and their experiences can be be extended to all Japanese Americans at that time. Meanwhile, the namelessness of the characters also conveys the loss of their identities. One Japanese American who was arrested as a spy said, “We were just numbers to them, mere slaves to the Emperor. We didn't even have names. I was 326” (Otsuka 119). The Japanese lost the basic right to their own names, and consequently, they lost their identities. Knowing that their Japanese identities may them trouble, the children even attempt to change their identities. They said, “We would change our names to sound more like theirs. And if our mother called out to us on the street by our real names we would turn away and pretend not to know her” (Otsuka 114). In this way, it can be said that identity is encoded in a name. Much like the children, I attempted to

In the narrative nonfictional book ‘The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates’ written by Wes Moore, we run into the realities faced by two men with a similar upbringing but a different ending. One Wes Moore became a Rhodes Scholar and the other was sentenced to life in prison. The book begins by examining the similarities of their childhood, such as them growing up fatherless, with the author Wes Moore’s father dying when he was 3, and the other Wes Moore not knowing his father well. The two both hung out on street corners, ran into trouble with the police, and had hardworking mothers. Mary, the mother of the other Wes Moore, financially struggled, so she moved her family to the Murphy Homes Projects in west Baltimore, where her oldest son

There comes a point in time in an individual’s life in which their name truly becomes a part of their identity. A name is more than just a title to differentiate people; it is a part of the person. In Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood by Richard E. Kim, names play a major role on the character’s identities. The absence and importance of the names in the story make the story rich with detail and identity through something as simple as the name of a character. Names are a significant factor affecting the story and the characters throughout the novel Lost Names.

At birth everyone is given a name by their parents. Your name is part of your identity and how you are addressed and recognized by the world. The different verities among the population created other names given to different races. These names are offensive, demeaning and are only used to refer to a person in a disrespectful manner. They can also cause a segregation among a nations people, these names are forced upon people weather they are rich or poor, old or young, male or female and are used to describe the same race of people. In the class reading "What 's in a Name? “by Henry Louis Gates he reminisces about a personal experience of his that he had with his father. In the story he describes his father was a hard worker and, because of this he was in high financial standings and, he was well respected and given privileges that at the time was rare for people of his race but he was still black and his name, his individual identity was not important instead he was given a racial identity, this is the only thing he was known as, this type of negative recognition is something many black Americans can relate to. One’s race is a predominant part of our identity and is what causes discrimination.

For instance, pen names allow women to publish books by concealing their identity. In early times women were not allowed to publish books because of their gender, causing there to be a great obstacle that many couldn’t overcome. An example of a woman that made use of a pen name was Charlotte Brontë. Brontë had set out to write the novel Jane Eyre, but considering her desire for literary achievement

Names are a contributing factor to establishing a sense of self. So whether we run away from them or adopt their expectations, how we identify is strongly influenced by our names. Toni Morrison 's Song of Solomon demonstrates how culture and names are used to shape identity. The story of Not Doctor Street shows the failure to completely oppress the black community, however, accomplishments for the community are overshadowed by the discord amongst black culture. Opening up with the story of Not Doctor Street sets up the tone of the prevalent dilemma within one’s own race, the struggle to understand heritage and culture, and the real possibility to abandon that culture to comply with oppressors. Macon Dead accepts his renaming resulting in a new identity. He no longer has any connections to his culture, but rather submits to forgetting his history. These values are then passed on from generation to generation. Patriarchs sacrifice their own identity and culture setting an example for future generations, such as Milkman, reshaping their values. The struggle of black males finding liberation are transferred through their misogynistic and greedy lifestyle. The want to liberate from social tyranny is present, but the characters are too absorbed in these assigned identities to find independence. The results are for characters to take great leaps of flight and abandoning everything, even their false identity that is linked with their assigned names, in order to be free from

Early in their lives, two young sisters, Ruth and Lucille, experience loss and abandonment from the men in the family. Their grandfather had died in a train derailment into Lake Fingerbone before they were born, and their father leaves them while they are very young. Then their mother commits suicide, but not before dropping the girls off on their grandmother’s porch. Moreover, then, “she sailed in Bernice’s Ford from the top of a cliff named Whiskey Rock into the blackest depth of the lake (23), again into Lake Fingerbone. After only a few months their grandmother dies leaving the girls to the remainder of the family, a collection of eccentric females. The girls deal with all of this by relying on each other. Soon, their great Aunt’s,

In one edition of “The Ethicists,” the idea of falsifying one’s name on an application in order to avoid unconscious gender or racial bias was discussed. The group went through several issues with the topic: the importance of cultural identity, the conflict with affirmative action, and limitations on lying. However, the general consensus by the end of the discussion was that if one was so determined to avoid bias on the basis of their name, they could legally change their name rather than falsifying their information. Kenji Yoshino’s perspective – which seemed to derive itself from his legal knowledge – was the driving force behind the group’s consensus as he claimed it would no longer be name falsification if you actually changed your legal