Megan was on-trend when my parents named me in the mid-eighties. My middle name, Brianna, came from a romance novel my mom was reading while she was pregnant. Megan is usually considered an Irish name, but I’m not Irish. When I got married, my surname became Healy. One time there was this old Irish man at a coffee shop I went to, and he asked me my name. When I said Megan, he proclaimed, “Oh Megan, a wonderful Irish name, wonderful!! What’s your last name?” When I told him, he actually fell off his barstool in his enthusiasm. I know lots of African-American students are named with an emphasis on uniqueness, even if its just the spelling that is different. And a lot of my Asian students, conversely, have surprisingly dated American names like Karen or Esther, and I always supposed it was in an effort to blend in instead of standing out. I wonder, on applications and such, it will be more or less difficult to get a job with a name that sounds distinctly black in ethnicity. I was always coached to think about what the name would look like on a diploma before choosing one… nothing too cutesy or ethnic. The only way I can imagine a name affecting academic performance is if it were difficult to pronounce. I know I call on students less if I don’t remember how to say their name correctly because I don’t want to embarrass them, but that does give them less academic rigor. And we’ve all known a kid who was challenged socially for their name, like a kid in my class with the last name “Baah”, and that peer rejection does affect his performance.
