Can Your Name Influence Your Job Choice?

Ruling upholds ban on "chain names" with more than one hyphen

(NEWSER) - Germany's highest court has upheld the country's ban on triple-barreled surnames, the BBC reports. The court ruled that limiting surnames to two did not violate freedom of expression laws. Frieda Thalheim and Hans-Peter Kunz-Hallstein—who have been married for 12 years but legally couldn't take their preferred last name, Thalheim-Kunz-Hallstein—said they were disappointed by the ruling. More»

(NEWSER) - Facebook has a thing against funny names, particularly if they’re actually yours, the Washington Post reports. Caitlin Shaw, who wanted to add her maiden name, Batman, to her profile, endured weeks of back-and-forth emails, while Starkiller Unleashed sails through. Facebook says it scrutinizes the real applicants because they are “fewer than the number of people who could potentially misuse the name on the site.” More»

(NEWSER) - Ordinary citizens who share the last name Obama with the president-elect are seeing goodwill and unexpected perks lately, the Washington Post reports. They might not be able to score Inauguration tickets, but entrance to a swanky nightclub? No problem. Speeding ticket? Fixed. And it’s an exclusive club: The country may have fewer than 20 Obama families, compared to 60,000 people whose last name is Bush. More»

Surname shortage causes identity mixups, bureaucratic chaos

(NEWSER) - The Chinese call them liaobaixing, or "old 100 names," and they are so partial to those 100 traditional surnames, Radio Free Netherlands tells us, that over 90% of the country's population of 1.3 billion share them. The profusion of Wangs, Chen, Lis and Wus creates powerful feelings of kinship, but also wreaks bureaucratic havoc. More»

Hispanics rising in latest surame survey

(NEWSER) - Smith is still the most common US surname, but Garcia and Rodriguez are hot on its tail, the New York Times says. Those two Hispanic names cracked the Census Bureau’s latest top 10, likely marking the first time a non-Anglo name has been so prevalent. After seeing their ranks swell 58% in the 1990s, Latinos now represent 13% of the population. More»