Is there more to a name than just the name?

I was looking for something to blog about, when I went onto the cnn website today and found an article entitled Does you name shape your destiny?. When I began to read it I found that it talked about whether or not the name you are given has an impact on things such as your. According to the article people with "black-sounding" names such as Lakisha and Jamal are 50 percent less likely to receive a call back for a job interview compared to "white-sounding" names such as Emily or Greg." I found this interesting because it related to TV Tokenism that Mr. Bolos had talked about. Something he didn't address but I would be interested to learn about would be the names of the characters who represent the minorities. It seems to me that is there is a black man who is playing the role of police cheif, he is less likely to have a "black sounding" name than a black man playing a role of the criminal. Examples of this that I found was from "24", the president's name is Dennis Palmer, a very "white sounding" name and from Grey's Anatomy with the token asian character being names "Christina".

Not only did the article talk about how a person's name can influence their lives both negatively and positively, but it talked about the growing diversity of names. Even the most popular names now don't represent as many people as they used to. As the article points out, parents now don't want their children to fit in with society, they want them to stand out and be different. Names now need to have a special meaning like the name "Nevaeh"which is heaven spelled backwards. This made me think of our discussions on class. We watched the video about class and how lower classes had to learn how to act and be part of the upper class. Classes in America aren't just about how much money you make, they have become socially distinct. Names have a lot to do with this, you won't find many "black sounding" names in upper class family. Now, with names beceoming more diverse I believe that names won't be as influential in playing a role in class. We looked at the interactive chart that Mr. Bolos showed us that showed the popularity of names in America. But now with more diverse names I don't think that emplyers will be able make such judgements only based on a person's name because they will come across a name they have never heard before and won't have a preconcieved opion about the name.

What do you think? How much influence do you think names have?