Employers ‘black’list Irish names

IRISH Americans who name their children after their favourite county could unwittingly be exposing their children to anti-black discrimination.

That’s the warning of an American Studies professor after a new survey found that job applicants with white- sounding names are twice as likely to receive a response from employers as those with the Irish name Tyrone, which is heavily identified with black Americans.

A recent study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago found that the Christian name Tyrone provokes anti-black discrimination even though it had been traditionally associated with Irish immigrants.