Online audit studies have recently emerged as the primary method to
examine racial discrimination. Although this research uses distinctive
names (e.g. Jamal Washington) to signal race, less than 1 out of every 5
studies scientifically examines any relevant data regarding the
perceptions of race from names. Different names treated as black (or
white) may be perceived in heterogeneous ways. Moreover, the rate at
which individuals perceive a name as black may explain variation within
audit studies of racial discrimination. I conduct a survey experiment
that asks respondents to identify the race they associate with a series
of names. I alter the names each respondent is given, whether last names
are included, and whether those last names racially match the first name
they are given. The results suggest that names more commonly given by
highly educated black mothers (e.g. Jalen and Nia) are less likely to be
recognized as black than names given by less educated black mothers
(e.g. DaShawn and Tanisha). These differences in the racial perception
names predict within-study differences in response rates from
employment, housing, and other audit studies conducted in the U.S. in
the past decade. The results suggest that a large body of social science
evidence on racial discrimination operates under a misguided assumption
that all black names are alike and the findings from audit studies are
likely extremely sensitive to name selection.