Names and Computing: Sociotechnical and Policy Perspectives

Abstract

Personal names simultaneously differentiate individuals and categorize them in ways that are important in a given society. For the latter reason, computing researchers frequently associates personal names with sociodemographic characteristics in a variety of settings. I first survey the established methodological problems with this, taking an interdisciplinary lens and covering problems of scientific validity as well as ethical concerns. Next, I show how problematic assumptions pervade not just our scientific research but also academia more broadly, where names connect scholars to their work. With a mixed-methods approach combining a survey, interviews, and large-scale citation analysis of eight major computer science venues, we show how such policies affect researchers who change their names. I close with guiding questions for researchers using names to operationalize sociodemographic characteristics, as well as guidance for naming and name change policies in academia.