Can A New Name Open Closed Doors? Foreign-Sounding Names and Immigrant Earnings

Personal names are visible markers of ethnic identity that can shape access to economic opportunity. While field experiments provide ample evidence that foreign-sounding names limit immigrants’ access to employment, far less is known about how names shape career trajectories beyond the point of hire in naturally unfolding labor market settings. Using unique administrative data with longitudinal information on personal names, we investigate how changing from a foreign-sounding to a name more typical in the native-born majority improves the labor market outcomes of immigrants and their children. Covering the entire population in Norway, these data allow us to calculate names’ ethnic distinctiveness and observe when individuals pursue a name-assimilation strategy. We exploit the timing of name changes in a difference-in-differences event study design following individuals before and after name change, with individuals who changed their names later as the control group. We find that adopting a mainstream name increases non-Western immigrants’ earnings by approximately 30 percent. These gains stem primarily from movement into stable, higher-paying jobs rather than wage growth within firms, indicating that name assimilation reduces barriers to job entry rather than influencing advancement within workplaces. These findings provide rare causal evidence on the economic payoff of symbolic assimilation and show how ethnic signals continue to structure opportunity in contemporary labor markets.