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Man wants to change his foriegn surname..
woofwoof77
Posts: 2,166 Forum Member
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Just wanted to know other peoples opinions on this .
A male family member wants to change his foreign surname to give him a better chance of finding work here. He is british born,british looking, middle aged,hasn't worked in 6 yrs and has to live with parents due to lack of money.
He believes this is partly due to his foreign surname and believes that employers take one look at his foreign surname and just ignore him. Do you think this is really happening in this country?
His dad says if he changes his surname to something more 'english' it may actually disadvantage him as he believes a lot of employers prefer foreign workers. I don't know what to think but if he does change his name WW3 might happen here =/
Do you think its any of his dads business if he does change his name? Just we've had heated row after row about it.
Anyway, just wanted peoples opinions =/
A male family member wants to change his foreign surname to give him a better chance of finding work here. He is british born,british looking, middle aged,hasn't worked in 6 yrs and has to live with parents due to lack of money.
He believes this is partly due to his foreign surname and believes that employers take one look at his foreign surname and just ignore him. Do you think this is really happening in this country?
His dad says if he changes his surname to something more 'english' it may actually disadvantage him as he believes a lot of employers prefer foreign workers. I don't know what to think but if he does change his name WW3 might happen here =/
Do you think its any of his dads business if he does change his name? Just we've had heated row after row about it.
Anyway, just wanted peoples opinions =/
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Regarding work, to be honest if the son hasn't had any negative feedback about his name being a barrier to employment, then I can't see why he'd want to change it. Maybe if it makes him feel better he could Anglicise it a little (like some did back in WWI and II, Schmidt to Smith etc).
Or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.
Haha!
Good point. X
Researching my family tree we found our surname was French, my Huguenot ancestors anglicised it after fleeing to England.
although it doesn't indicate why the discrimination was taking place
i.e. it's quite possible that it's cultural differences that some employers are wary of rather than skin colour. although it says that the applications indicated that all candidates where born and raised in the UK, that doesn't mean they where raised within what the employers might regard as a traditional UK culture.
another success for 'multi culturalism'
Yeah, in some situations it definitely makes sense. All initial CV sorting should be done blind, without any personal info, I think.
I'm sure it does happen, but it would depend on the origin of the name.
I used to work in a department where we had to give out our surnames to customers as well as first names. Most of the foreigners either refused or changed it to something more English-sounding.
It could just be this guy needs to go on a course and update his skills to become more employable. Six years is a long time. I'm not saying it is his fault, but sometimes bosses cannot get passed how long a person has been without a job and this could be the issue more than his name.
If I were him I soldier on and keep my name.
Under his 'foreign' sounding (first) name he didn't have much luck, work-wise. Upon changing his name, legally by deed poll, he had no trouble whatsoever.
If he wants to change his name, then it's up to him, but it's a shame that he feels that way. To not get a job in six years kind of says to me that there's some other issue here. That's an awful lot of potential employers who are being accused.
Eta, I don't know if they used the surname to discriminate or what, but that's what he was told twice.
I'm sure a lot of 2nd/3rd generation people with surnames that sound Polish and similar have the same issue.
It's not right that it happens, but I can sort of see the logic.
Good move though!
I mean, a 'Carry On!' movie starring Barbara Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
and Sid James just wouldn't sound right.