Parents who hope to see their daughters grow up to become lawyers should take note of a recent study co-authored by a Duke alumnus.
A study conducted by researchers at Clemson University and George Mason University found that women with masculine names are more successful in the legal profession. The study looked specifically at members of the South Carolina Bar and their names as they relate to their success in law, including those women who ultimately became judges.
Bentley Coffey, Grad ’04, said the idea for the study evolved out of his wife’s assertion that giving their identical twin daughters hyper-feminine names would hurt them in the future.
“I seriously doubt that,” Coffey, an assistant professor of economics at Clemson, said in response to his wife, who is a lawyer.
But after examining the genders and names of local judges and members of the South Carolina Bar, Coffey said shocked to learn how important the masculinity of a name could be.
The study found that naming one’s daughter Kelly in lieu of Sue increases her chances of becoming a judge by 5 percent—the name Cameron triples her chances, and Bruce quintuples them.
Patrick McLaughlin, the study’s other author, was unavailable for comment.
A follow-up study Coffey led, which has yet to be published, also found that, based on the survey responses of 1,000 different lawyers in South Carolina, a female lawyer’s nominal masculinity is correlated with the amount of money she makes. That is, the more masculine a female lawyer’s name, the more money she earns.
Although Coffey and McLaughlin have found a correlation between nominal masculinity and success in the legal field, Coffey said the cause of this phenomenon is unknown. “The theory varies from something subtle and psychological to just basic ignorance,” he said.
One possible factor, at least where a judge’s election is concerned, is that voters wrongly identify a female candidate’s masculine name on a ballot as belonging to a man. Hence, given these theoretical circumstances, voters could cast their ballots for a female candidate they believe is a man.
Katharine Bartlett, A. Kenneth Pye professor and former dean at the School of Law, agreed that it is difficult to establish cause and effect, but emphasized the importance of looking beyond outside factors or ignorance and instead at the subtle psychological factors.
“Rather than having it all determined by how other people view you, it can be about how you view yourself,” she said, adding that having a more masculine name might give a woman confidence in the male-dominated world of law. “Parents who are going to push their kids to be male-type figures will give them male-type names.”
Such was the case with Coffey and his wife, who ended up giving one of his daughters a traditional feminine name, but named the other Collins, referring to this decision as “our own little experiment.”
But Ranjana Khanna, Margaret Taylor Smith director of women’s studies and professor of English and literature, said she found the decision to give one’s daughter a more masculine name compliant to misogyny, and in no way a solution to the problem.
“If you see the problem as a devaluing of the feminine or of women... then you’re not going to think you solved the problem by giving your daughter a male name,” she said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.