Ask HN: How to network if I share a name with another person in the same field?

2 points by TheAsprngHacker 5 years ago | 9 comments

As I prepare for college, I would like to do more to network myself and build my career. I currently plan to go into academia and specialize in programming language theory. I have a common western first name and a common foreign last name. When I search up my name (first and last), the top results are a computer scientist at UBC who shares my first name, last name, and middle initial! What's more, this person appears to specialize in formal verification, which overlaps with PL theory.

What can I do to distinguish myself? In addition, should I worry about discrimination for having a foreign last name?

Should I invent an alias or nickname for myself?

schoen 5 years ago |

Yikes, the shared middle initial is a challenge because that's what most people in this situation fall back on.

A few possible ideas that some people have used:

(1) Try to use a variant of your first name if it's a name that has variant spellings available, or a shorter or a longer form (Tim/Timothy, Kim/Kimberley, Will/William/Bill, Cate/Catherine/Kate/Katherine/Katy).

(2) Consider using your full middle name instead of just middle initial.

(3) Consider using your first initial and middle name instead of your first name and middle initial (like C. Wright Mills or J. Presper Eckert). This pattern is not uncommon in the English-speaking world although it is most used by people who simply don't like their first names that much.

(4) If your last name is a transliteration from a different writing system (like Cyrillic or hanzi), consider using a different transliteration method so that your last name is spelled slightly differently in English.

(5) Maybe contact the other researcher to describe your situation? I imagine most people would be amused and sympathetic in this situation.

(6) Maybe adopt a second middle name so that you have two middle initials instead of one. While this still might allow for some confusion, I think most publication venues would accept it.

On the bright side, there were two different researchers at the same time in the same department at Bell Labs named Stephen R. Bourne (one of them wrote the Bourne shell, /bin/sh) and apparently both of them had successful careers. :-)

schoen 5 years ago | |

I wish I had immediately thought of my two-time coauthor J. Alex Halderman (https://jhalderm.com/) as a present-day computer scientist who gets cited by first initial and middle name.

And also the famous albeit fictitious J. Random Hacker! (Perhaps inspired by the inaugural FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.)

samizdis 5 years ago |

There is nothing wrong, if chosen well, in the adoption of a recognisable and unique handle/nickname. But your thoughts and ideas as expressed in material searched online will distinguish you, not your name.

People search for names when they know the name already. Until your name is well known in your field, and your ideas are sufficiently differentiated from those of your namesakes, they will search for the areas in which you operate. If you distinguish yourself, you will be uniquely identifiable by your original thoughts and work.

If you are happy with your name, don't change it for fear of being mistaken. If your insights and achievements stand up on their own merit, you won't suffer on account of a shared name.

TheAsprngHacker 5 years ago | |

Thank you for the advice.

> People search for names when they know the name already. Until your name is well known in your field, and your ideas are sufficiently differentiated from those of your namesakes, they will search for the areas in which you operate. If you distinguish yourself, you will be uniquely identifiable by your original thoughts and work.

If I go by my real name, what would be the logistics of citing work? I'm worried about the situation where a reader may see my name cited and assume that the work was done by the other person, or see work done by the other person cited and assume that it was done by me. The issue may be exacerbated by tools such as Google Scholar.

samizdis 5 years ago | | |

I'd hate my words to have been taken as advice. I can see the pitfalls that you have pointed out; I've never had to consider even as a remote possibllity that my scribblings might be cited anywhere.

My reply was pretty much to say don't overthink things and to be confident in your uniqueness, your viewpoints and your contributions to your field. However, I see your pragmatism.

(I cannot resist a flippant aside, though: Google Scholar will probably go the way of all Google products that were useful but showed insufficient profit. Don't make decisions that assume its continued existence.)

If you have a nickname that you like, there's no reason not to use it. If you have friends who might suggest one, then canvass their opinions. If you are into your birthright geography, append a place name as helping to define you. (Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of sceptic thought, is known now by name with place.) But beware of sounding pretentious.

Nowadays, some exalted people have resolved similar problems via the expedient of handles such as "realDonaldTrump". So be careful about your choices.

Whatever you decide to do, linger over any decision. Also, this being HN, you should get many better and more useful responses than this. But please don't fret. Maybe move this concern to a lower peg for now.

Edit to add: I've only now read properly the last bit of your original post: "In addition, should I worry about discrimination for having a foreign last name?"

Worry will do no good, and disguising the name or westernising/anglicising it will not prevent the prejudices inflicted by the sort of people who harbour them. Such people are looking for victims; and they do exist. But fuck them. They grow rarer and more endangered as the clock ticks.

Use a negative reaction to your name as a positive indicator that such people are not fit employers or associates or anything; they are to be ignored, and resisted/fought if they get in your face.

I really hope that some proper HN people weigh in on this.

shyn3 5 years ago |

Studies show foreign names are more likely to be looked over for applications so I would recommend it [1].

[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bias-hiring-0504-...

TheAsprngHacker 5 years ago | |

Maybe I missed it, but the article you link doesn't support your comment. The article details an experiment that found that there actually wasn't a hiring bias between white, black, and Hispanic last names, with the caveat that the most common black last names according to the US census aren't names that society stereotypically associates with black people.

However, I am Chinese-American, and the study doesn't involve Chinese last names at all. I am worried about growing suspicion towards Chinese-Americans due to relations between the US and China (with the current Covid-related xenophobia being a manifestation of this deeper tension).

shyn3 5 years ago | | |

Wow complete failure on my end. That does go against my original comment, I just presumed all the studies are the same. Look up "Whitening," it's a common concept. I attached another study. I don't know about the racial tensions, I don't think it's a big issue, but a lot of people struggle to pronounce foreign names so many foreigners use an alias, where I am at least.

[1] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...

NonEUCitizen 5 years ago |

Try suffixing with "...the Younger." For example, if your common western first name is Bruce, and your common foreign last name is Lee, you can call yourself Bruce Lee the Younger.

Or prefix with "Young" -- Young Bruce Lee.