Can A Candidate With a Long or Ethnic and Long Last Name Ever Be Nominated or Elected President?

[Tatooine]

I think there is a subtle psychological factor with names, even if we're not aware of it. Here's one study that reports that "those with names that are easier to pronounce rise up the ranks of their companies more quickly." I remember doing research for a debate on the death penalty for school and I read that people with long, ethnic names tended to get longer sentences and had a higher chance of getting the death penalty compared to defendants who had easier names.

I think the more often a name is pronounced and used, people will get used to it, as is the case with Blagojevich and Schwarzenegger. I do remember that back when Barack Obama (another name that's become normalized through use) was campaigning, his opponents loved to say his name as, "and the other candidate, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, believes that ..." They really wanted to draw attention to the Hussein part of his name, probably in hopes of showing how "other" he was.

[Packard fan]

Originally Posted by Tatooine

I think there is a subtle psychological factor with names, even if we're not aware of it. Here's one study that reports that "those with names that are easier to pronounce rise up the ranks of their companies more quickly." I remember doing research for a debate on the death penalty for school and I read that people with long, ethnic names tended to get longer sentences and had a higher chance of getting the death penalty compared to defendants who had easier names.

I think the more often a name is pronounced and used, people will get used to it, as is the case with Blagojevich and Schwarzenegger. I do remember that back when Barack Obama (another name that's become normalized through use) was campaigning, his opponents loved to say his name as, "and the other candidate, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, believes that ..." They really wanted to draw attention to the Hussein part of his name, probably in hopes of showing how "other" he was.

Agreed. I'm of Irish family and that's why many of us dumped the Gaelic spellings for the "English" spellings ince here in the US, less drama making it easier for us to fit in.

OTOH: in Mexico; a Mexican having a def English name IS probably worse off than using a Spanish 1.

[TimTheEnchanter]

There have only been 43 people elected president so the sample is way too small to draw any conclusions.

Eisenhower was obviously not a short name and neither was Roosevelt.

George Deukmejian was Governor of California and would have been a good presidential candidate, but he was governor during the Reagan/Bush years and there wasn't much of an opportunity for him.

Arnold Schwarzenegger came a few years later.

I think the name has little to do with who gets elected and who doesn't.

[Packard fan]

Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter

There have only been 43 people elected president so the sample is way too small to draw any conclusions.

Eisenhower was obviously not a short name and neither was Roosevelt.

George Deukmejian was Governor of California and would have been a good presidential candidate, but he was governor during the Reagan/Bush years and there wasn't much of an opportunity for him.

Arnold Schwarzenegger came a few years later.

I think the name has little to do with who gets elected and who doesn't.

Mr S was NOT a native born US citizen and his parents weren't either so he'd be out of the running off the bat.