What's In a Name? For your Practice, a Great Deal

I was approached by a really talented and lovely young dental student a few weeks ago who wanted to know if her last name which is Russian (and darned hard to spell correctly) was going to be a problem for her.

My answer was, "Yes." It somewhat surprised her. She had assumed that in a fairly metropolitan location that the race or ethnicity of the doctor was becoming less important than it was in a more "white bread" America. Actually, she is both right and wrong on that count.

The problem with using her last name is not so much an "anti-Russian" bias. It is a matter of packaging. The name has four syllables. Dues to its origin it also lacked sufficient number of vowels in the right places that are most common in Romance-Based names. The bottom line is that it is both hard to remember (for most people) and nearly impossible to spell.

Think of a moment how often people are using the Internet to find people and professional services. There is no "auto-spell" feature on Google when it comes to proper names. This makes it hard for people to find her. And as our marketing psychology friends keep telling us, if a name seems too long or difficult to pronounce, the brain will just bounce it out the left ear, never to be remembered.

The option that we think is strongest is to use the first name (or a variation on it) as the identifier for the doctor. While we do not love most fictitious names, they may be the best option when a last name won't work.

But back to the question, are there populations out there that will put off by an name that appear to be too "ethnic"? Absolutely! And let's get over the notion that this kind of ethnic preference is reserved for White populations. If anything, we have seen this bias among every ethnic, language, and cultural group out there. In fact, last week we heard a Korean professional say that he didn't want to refer to a particular doctor because he sounded "a little too Japanese for my tastes." Take that for what it is.