6. Perfect Parenting, Part II; or: Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?
In which we weigh the importance of a parent’s first official act—naming the baby.
A boy named Winner and his brother, Loser…The blackest names and the whitest names…The segregation of culture: why Seinfeld never made the top fifty among black viewers…If you have a really bad name, should you just change it?…High-end names and low-end names (and how one becomes the other)…Britney Spears: a symptom, not a cause…Is Aviva the next Madison?…What your parents were telling the world when they gave you your name.
EPILOGUE: Two Paths to Harvard
In which the dependability of data meets the randomness of life.
AN EXPLANATORY NOTE
The most brilliant young economist in America—the one so deemed, at least, by a jury of his elders—brakes to a stop at a traffic light on Chicago’s south side. It is a sunny day in mid-June. He drives an aging green Chevy Cavalier with a dusty dashboard and a window that doesn’t quite shut, producing a dull roar at highway speeds.
But the car is quiet for now, as are the noontime streets: gas stations, boundless concrete, brick buildings with plywood windows.
An elderly homeless man approaches. It says he is homeless right on his sign, which also asks for money. He wears a torn jacket, too heavy for the warm day, and a grimy red baseball cap.
The economist doesn’t lock his doors or inch the car forward. Nor does he go scrounging for spare change. He just watches, as if through one-way glass. After a while, the homeless man moves along.