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Comment by christiansakai | Hacker News Reader

Oh wow, that seems true. What is the reason for this?

It used to be much less accepted to have a "foreign sounding" (non-anglo-saxon) name.

It still is if it's non-obvious how to pronounce it. People will avoid saying your name which has some indirect effects on things like interviews and introductions

Fully aware that it can still be an issue. I have such a surname and spend a lot of time explaining it. Just writing that however unaccepted it is today, it was less accepted in the past.

I have an Anglo-Saxon surname, but it's rare and very difficult for people here in SE Asia to pronounce, so I use a simpler, shorter, one-syllable last name when I'm here. This used to be a common thing that people would do internationally, even non-famous people like me. Some native English speakers back home might think I'm doing it for subversive reasons, but it's actually to make things easier for the natives here to say, spell, and remember.

A number of studies here in Canada have found that resumes are more likely to get a call-back if the person's name is typically Anglo-Saxon as opposed to pretty much anything else. I think the effect has been shown in the USA too.

Employers are probably biased towards hiring a "John Watson" over a "John Adeyemi" or even a "John Kaminski", all other things being equal. So people change their names. It's pretty common. I doubt show business is any different.

Our sales guys have african-sounding names; after taking alter-egos of western names, their response rate tripled up to the normalized comparison of other employees with western names.

PS: UK

I'd say in show business it is more about building your brand. You want a name that rings and is easy to remember.

Avoiding racism, anti-semitism, etc.

In contrast to people like John Stewart who changed his name to sound less Jewish, Whoopie Goldberg (born Caryn Elaine Johnson) changed her name to sound more Jewish. She said she changed her name early in her career to sound Jewish because it would help her career. It's interesting that both of these very successful actors/comedians started from very different assumptions but in the end both ended up being top people in their field.

> It's interesting that both of these very successful actors/comedians started from very different assumptions but in the end both ended up being top people in their field.

Who says they started with very different assumptions?

Order of preference:

1. White non-jew 2. White jew 3. Black

He changed his name so he could get by more easily as the top-ranked preference. For her, a non-jew white name would be hard to distinguish from black. She chose the name that more affirmatively promoted her above the lowest ranked spot.

I doubt either of them would disagree with the above ranking order, though.

#2 is Jew, not White Jew.

Black Jew is rare and intriguing in a way that Black or Jew alone is not.

Less rare thing you think back then. Drake, Lenny Kravitz, Lisa Bonet, Nell Carter, Sammy Davis, Rashida Jones are famous names.

What sounds "black" about her birth name?

Donald Trump decided to refer to Jon Stewart as Jon Leibowitz, I can't think why

You think he knows him personally from the synagogue Jared Kushner and his daughter attend?

That's because he is trying to shame him for supposedly hiding his Jewish heritage. Could be a dog whistle for the anti-Semites, but that's one level deeper than Trump's thinking ever seems to go.

It's rather rich considering Trump's grandfather changed the family name from Drumpf to Trump.

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