STA family uses gender neutral names to protect kids, avoid discrimination | by MOLLIE POINTER

Almost eighteen years ago John and Karen Miller held their first born child, Jordan Kate Miller, vowing to each other and to their newborn child they would do everything in their power to endorse their daughter’s future. To the Miller’s, giving an androgynous, or gender neutral name was a small way that could only, in their opinion, further their daughter’s opportunities. In recent studies, it is 5 percent more likely to be hired if the applicant attains an androgynous name.
The other Miller children, STA junior Casey Elizabeth and Visitation seventh grader Sam David were also given androgynous names. According to Karen, the idea of gender neutral names really began with their daughters, Jordan and Casey, but then decided to continue the family trend and name their only son Sam.
“We didn’t want our children, especially our daughters, to be discriminated against in something such as employment,” Karen said.
Supporting Karen’s ideas, it was reported in 2005 by the journal Sex Roles the study The Name Game “resumes commonly contain at least two types of information from which employers can make initial inferences about the applicant: (1) a work history…and (2) applicant name, which may provide indirect information about sex….”
Karen nor the girls have experienced any type of sex based bias yet in their life, but like to think that one day it may come in handy. Due to the rise of women in the work force and increase in women leaders, the Miller’s believe discrimination of women in the employment process has become less of issue since deciding upon their children’s names.
Though in a recent study, it is shown that women still suffer from discrimination in the application process and a study performed in the last year shows that a woman can still benefit from a neutral or strictly masculine name in the employment process. A study by the American Law and Economics Review showed changing a woman’s name from something feminine to a gender-neutral name increases the odds of her becoming appointed a judge by five percent, and moving from a feminine name to an exclusively male name such as Bruce can quintuple her chances.
“I can’t help but think if someone is flipping though a stack of resumes, they may decide to keep [Jordan and Casey’s based on their names],”Karen said.
Jordan and Casey both agreed that the androgynous names seems to work in terms of being mistaken for masculine and coincidentally enough, there is a junior at Rockhurst who shares the same first and last name as Jordan.
“I used to always receive mail from Rockhurst [High School] when I was in eighth grade,” Jordan said. “Now, I always get mistaken for the Rockhurst Jordan Miller like on Facebook.”
Though Jordan used to have weary feelings about her name that could also be a boy’s, she realizes and hopes it can one day benefit her.
“I used to hate [having a gender neutral name] and wanted a ‘pretty’ name like Jessica or Maddy that you knew was a girl,” Jordan said. “Now I kind of like it.”