# Asian, white-sounding names preferred by landlords over Hispanic, Black names



## canabiz (Apr 4, 2009)

Food for thought

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/n...s+preferred+landlords+over/8606522/story.html

Remind me of the time when I didn't get a single phone call for interview when pumping out resumes after graduation. I soon adopted an English-sounding first name, put it on my resume and the rest, as they say, is history.

My foreign-sounding name doesn't mean I don't speak English or don't have Canadian values but I understand the predicament and I had no problem adapting to the situation. It is what it is


----------



## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

You are in good company along with Barry Obama.


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

You mean Barack Hussein Obama?

This phenomenon is well documented when it comes to applying for jobs, being cited in scientific papers, etc. Women are also discriminated against.


----------



## Spidey (May 11, 2009)

Why is it that they only seem to target those who are classed as entrepreneurs as guilty of stereotyping? More than one school teacher has told me that they hope to have as many oriental children in their class as possible.


----------



## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

Like it or not stereotyping is about odds and probabilities of characteristics of a group. It doesn't mean that you will get the stereotype every time on an individual basis, but repeating enough times you will get a representation.

We know it happens, that's why we gave our girls unisex end names, so if the decide to go into a male dominated industry when they are older, they won't be discriminated on the resume.


----------



## canabiz (Apr 4, 2009)

kcowan said:


> You are in good company along with Barry Obama.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/03/22/when-barry-became-barack.html

I am still using my birth name legally (driver's license, passport, S.I.N.) but socially and professionally, people know and call my English first name. This suits me just fine, thank you very much.

Back to the original topic, if the table were reversed, I wonder whether tenants shy away from landlords judging by their names/accents? esp. for people looking to share rooms in a house with other folks who regularly enjoy traditional and potentially smelly food.


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Is this why so many Chinese people in particular adopt 'English' names? Many other cultures don't do this. And for some reason it often seems to be archaic names that are pretty rare these days like Edith or Winston.


----------



## Ethan (Aug 8, 2010)

Not saying this is right or wrong, but in Saskatchewan, if your name sounds native, you are going to have a very difficult time finding accommodations.


----------



## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

andrewf said:


> Is this why so many Chinese people in particular adopt 'English' names? Many other cultures don't do this. And for some reason it often seems to be archaic names that are pretty rare these days like Edith or Winston.


A Hong Kong born Canadian guy with whom I worked in Saudi, and whose first name, to me, was easily pronounceable, came by his 'adopted' name as a kid at school in HK....a teacher English...(the teacher, not the subject), said "I can't pronounce ****, I'm going to call you ****".


----------



## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

English names will hinder people in some parts of Québec the same way. Some of my coworkers used Francophone "aliases" for this reason. I used my real name but it was always pronounced and spelt the French way (seems a bit presumptuous).. Many English also have a strong habit of shortening or "Anglicizing" the names of foreigners without realizing it.


----------



## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

m3s said:


> Many English also have a strong habit of shortening or "Anglicizing" the names of foreigners without realizing it.


The Aussies too......and not just foreigners:

http://talkingaustralian.blogspot.ca/2009/05/just-add-o.html



> To show affection for others the diminutive ‘za’ or ‘o’ is sometimes added to personal names like Bazza (Barry), Kazza (Karen) and Shazza (Sharon); Lizo and Camo too


Mel Gibson noted that he was called "Gibbo" in his younger days.


----------



## Islenska (May 4, 2011)

My Father's name, very Icelandic (Palmi Egill) was such a tongue twister so everyone called him "Red"

Our family name was Thorkelson but on emigrating ~1900 it was changed as sounding too foreign,

Funny how today we cherise our roots, two sons are Lief Palmi and Erik Magnus---what goes around.........


----------



## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Islenska said:


> Our family name was Thorkelson but on emigrating ~1900 it was changed as sounding too foreign,
> 
> Funny how today we cherise our roots, two sons are Lief Palmi and Erik Magnus---what goes around.........


Although Iceland is one of few places that still doesn't use western-style family names, so Thorkelson means son-of-Thorkel right and eventually stuck as a family name? Many many family names commonly end in "son" now but never "dottir" because kids take the father's last name with this system.... I spent a fair bit of time in Iceland.. one of the world's best kept secrets!


----------



## thompsg4416 (Aug 18, 2010)

I happen to live in China..... I have 4 locals who work for me and all 4 have english names. The main reason is that we can never say thier names right. Mandarin is a tonal language and as non mandarin (non-tonal) speakers we'll almost always say their names wrong. 

IE two people could have the same name spelling but have two different names. As simple English folk we'd call them the same thing.


----------



## Islenska (May 4, 2011)

It's a small world. First went to Iceland in 74, working at a fish plant on Westmann Island (Vestmannayer) and hooked up with relatives, exploring family roots. This was a year after the island was evacuated from a volcano, could still see mist and ash around but young and foolish so found it all a neat adventure!

Thorkelsson males are the son of Thorkel and Thorkelsdottir is the daughter. One of my cousins is Alfethur Olafsdottir (has a painting site on ArtIceland)-----her name is a tongue twister.

Icelanders can easily trace their history from the Saga literature, starting from when the Vikings first arrived. On a financial note their money crash in 08 is painfull to read but the economy has rebounded----put the country on your bucket list!


----------



## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

I just went to that island last month, Islenska. It's really something to see! They called it Heimaey Island or something like that, but I'm sure it's the same one.


----------



## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

"Asian, white sounding names preferred by landlords over black sounding names"

Gee - I wonder why?


----------



## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Islenska said:


> It's a small world. First went to Iceland in 74, working at a fish plant on Westmann Island (Vestmannayer) and hooked up with relatives, exploring family roots. This was a year after the island was evacuated from a volcano, could still see mist and ash around but young and foolish so found it all a neat adventure!
> 
> Thorkelsson males are the son of Thorkel and Thorkelsdottir is the daughter. One of my cousins is Alfethur Olafsdottir (has a painting site on ArtIceland)-----her name is a tongue twister.
> 
> Icelanders can easily trace their history from the Saga literature, starting from when the Vikings first arrived. On a financial note their money crash in 08 is painfull to read but the economy has rebounded----put the country on your bucket list!


I, too, have married a Viking! (just throwing that in there. Husband stole my favourite coffee mug, the one that has a Viking on it, because he is an Actual Viking)


----------



## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> "Asian, white sounding names preferred by landlords over black sounding names"
> 
> Gee - I wonder why?


Why?


----------



## Islenska (May 4, 2011)

You have the proper island name right Spudd, (Vestmannayer is the actual town, about 4000 people)

Amazing in 73 the volcano occurred at 2am and the whole island was evacuated without loss of life. Luckily the fishing fleet was in harbour and all went to Iceland proper (5miles away). When I worked there a year later conditions were obviously rather sparse, but you did what you had to do!

The country as a whole has 320,000 citizens and very cultured, saw my first opera there. But like anywhere else not a bed of roses. Fishing is still the backbone of their economy although tourism top of the list too.

Those Viking blondes, but that is another story................


----------



## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

none said:


> Why?


That is what I would like to know.


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

It's prejudice. 

Why are we dancing around it?


----------



## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Apparently there are human rights laws against this is Canada, though it seems to me landlords get away with it all the time (Pretty sure I've even seen shady discussions on here) Whenever I called to rent a place in Québec they always said it was full, even though it was obviously vacant. Didn't know at the time it was probably illegal (it's still ok in Canada for car insurance though :tongue-new

(Ontario) People cannot be refused an apartment, harassed by a housing provider or other tenants, or otherwise treated unfairly because of your: Race, colour or ethnic background, religious beliefs or practices, ancestry (including people of Aboriginal descent) place of origin, citizenship (including refugee status) sex (including pregnancy and gender identity) family status, marital status (including people with a same-sex partner) disability, sexual orientation, age (including people who are 16 or 17 years old and no longer living with their parents) receipt of public assistance, or a friend of one of the above

Rental history, credit references and/or credit checks may be requested. You can ask for income information, but you must also ask for and consider it together with any available information on rental history, credit references and credit checks (such as through Equifax Canada). You can only consider income information on its own when no other information is made available. You can only use income information to confirm the person has enough income to cover the rent. Unless you are providing subsidized housing, it is illegal to apply a rent-to-income ratio such as a 30% cut-off rule.


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

That's nice in theory. It is difficult to apply in practice, and is routinely ignored by landlords.


----------



## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Rent your house to the first person that comes along and get back to me. Better yet, rent to some poor downtrodden person who only asks to be given a break this one time.


----------



## dbw (Dec 8, 2011)

When I read this story, it reminds me of an experience I had many years ago, but it's the opposite.
I'm a Canadian born oriental, I speak English better than my mother's tongue and have an English first name. About 30 years ago when I started university at Western and was looking for a place to rent, I called an ad about a basement room for rent, spoke to the owner for a good 20 minutes to find out information about the place, we got along great on the phone and he invited me to come over to take a look. Half hour later I knocked on the door, the owner opens the door and gave me a very strange look and a rude welcome "What do you want?", when I told him about our phone conversation, he responded "NOT available" and slam the door shut in my face. I never forget that experience.


----------



## canabiz (Apr 4, 2009)

dbw said:


> When I read this story, it reminds me of an experience I had many years ago, but it's the opposite.
> I'm a Canadian born oriental, I speak English better than my mother's tongue and have an English first name. About 30 years ago when I started university at Western and was looking for a place to rent, I called an ad about a basement room for rent, spoke to the owner for a good 20 minutes to find out information about the place, we got along great on the phone and he invited me to come over to take a look. Half hour later I knocked on the door, the owner opens the door and gave me a very strange look and a rude welcome "What do you want?", when I told him about our phone conversation, he responded "NOT available" and slam the door shut in my face. I never forget that experience.


Thanks for sharing. If that guy can sleep well at night knowing how he treated a fellow human being went very much against the basic tenets of humanity then to quote one of Ariel Castro's victims impact statement: May God have mercy on his soul.


----------



## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Is it possible that he had a bad experience with an Asian? I knew an old man who told me he was cheated badly when he was young by a man with a hare lip. For the rest of his life he could never trust anyone with that affliction. 

There are some WW2 and Korean War veterans who have an aversion to Asians that they will never get over. 

It may not make sense but that is how the human mind works.

To be perfectly clear - what happened to you WAS unfair and unjust. I am trying to point out, that you should not take it too seriously, it probably had nothing to do with you.

If it makes you feel any better I have been treated as bad or worse and I am a Canadian born white man. We all rub some people the wrong way for reasons we may never know.


----------



## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

Also many of my Canadian friends are called bananas by other Asians. They are yellow on the outside and white on the inside. They suffer by discrimination by "true" Orientals.

(and their first names are Stan and Warren...and they are outspoken in their criticism of "true" Asian driving and eating habits.)


----------



## jcgd (Oct 30, 2011)

At work a while back I watched an Asian fellow drive a work lift down a narrow pathway, scraping by both the handrail and the lift parked near him. He looks back at me and says "What? I'm Asian" and keeps going. He made me laugh.

I think it is very important to try and not let our biases affect the way we treat others. I think most people have biases and a natural tendency to discriminate. However, it is important to realize that it is not right and do your very best to treat everyone with the same fairness and respect.


----------

