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Comment by eastbound | Hacker News Reader

My father was a headmaster of schools (6 to 20 years olds). Not that he wouldn’t take Gregorys and Kevins, but he’d always open their file and find behavioral issues noted by previous teachers, confirmed through a discussion with the parents on what educative principle they used, ending up in justifying not taking the kid.

Yes it was a bias, but it’s also strange how this bias developed by itself too.

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My mother was a headmistress in France, there were certain name that heavily correlated with behavioural problems: Dylan, Kevin, Ryan, Johnny (from the French singer Johnny Hallyday). It's classist because those names tended to be from the lower classes but in general, it was also specifically the least intelligent parents from the lower classes that often chose those names.

Of course, it's a generalisation but it really was flagrant.

In Sweden, it is often said that men with names ending in -y have a significantly worse outlook in life than the average. Article from Swedish public-service radio (in Swedish, but Google Translate handles it nicely): https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/4743711 . TL;DR: such names were popular in disadvantaged socioeconomic groups.

Come to think of it, I remember clearly french school teachers (male and female, but mostly female) being so condescending with kids being named Kevin, Dylan, Jennifer, etc. in the 90´s, like their names implied they were born stupid and they would stay that way for the rest of their lives.

Guess those experiences might have marked some kids that are now reproducing the same bullish behavior.

In Belgium, people from lower classes are often derogatorily called "barakis" (coming from stall holders living in caravans called "baraques"). The stereotypical baraki is called "Jason", "Brandon", "Kevin", "Jacky" or, for women, "Stacy", "Beverly" or "Cheyenne". When talking with french friends, they told me their word for those was "Jacky". I felt bad for all the French whose name is really Jacky.

That's called a "self-fulfilling prophecy." You can always find what you're looking for. That's the essence of the unfairness of bias, so it's not a surprise that minorities and poor people are in US prisons in large numbers or receive harsher school-to-prison pipeline treatment in education.

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