CLASS SIGNALS. "I've always suspected that middle-class whites think 'black' names -- and redneck names -- are low class. But the results for women in this study seem to indicate discrimination against job-seekers named 'Anne' and 'Emily'," notes Joanne Jacobs. That's a spot-on observation about a recent news story purporting to find racial discrimination using randomly shuffled names and credentials. The set of female first names appeared Monday on Best of the Web. My sense is that there's something more in that list of names than meets the eye, as there are two kinds of exotic names, those chosen by well-off people, and those chosen by poor people. Try a list with Christina or Tiffany or Michael or Louis or Aaron or Brett (names from recent class rolls, I won't tell you anything further about their parents) on it and see what happens.

UPDATE: Armed Liberal is doing some significance testing on the numbers provided, and intends to follow up. He raises a good point: how would a Dweezil or a Moon Unit (or a Sadie?) fare in such a study?