Writing Privacy

I‘ve thought for a very long time about how my forename is an easy target for mockery. But the issue of naming has recently expanded to the importance of job roles and titles. How do names define us?

I am named after my dad – a ‘spitting image’ apparently. God help me. Some of my closest friends may remember his ill-timed comedic efforts during my wedding ceremony. “About bloody time.” Thanks, boss.

Before I get too uncharitable, I should probably remember that certain inherited characteristics are inevitable.

But I am among a last generation of Keiths. It’s more-or-less extinct as a name in the UK, albeit clinging on a touch in the USA. I was the only Keith at either of the schools I attended – around 1,400 children at any one time, and around 2,500 throughout. It’s been a weirdly unique characteristic for my ‘cohort’.

My full name also became a bit of an embarrassing meme in the mid-2000s, thanks to an insalubrious character from my hometown who regularly made the news for all the wrong reasons. Every time I manage to forget about it, it surfaces again unexpected. (Again, wedding.)

But the name Keith has long been an easy target for ridicule, particularly for television. Just a couple of examples:

• The mundane PC whose name the Superintendent forgets – A Touch of Frost
• An embarrassing alcoholic – Never Better (Stephen Mangan)
• “What sort of name is Keith?” – Have I Got News for You (Stephen Mangan)
• The ‘mental’ scotch egg eating accountant – The Office
• Sexual interest in dogs – Phoenix Nights
• “The most unattractive male name in the English language” – Family Guy
• “Keith, change your name… I’m embarrassed to say it” – Hoodwinked

It can sometimes be fun to try and own the joke.

When the Sunderland Echo came up with the headline ‘Reckless Romeo‘ for my Lothario namesake, I happened to be working in Switzerland for the editor of the Cambridge edition of Romeo and Juliet (First Quarto). I printed off the item for my office door in the appropriately named Comédie building with the caption, “Have you seen this man?”

When the Echo returned with ‘Sunderland Shagger’ a year later, that was a bit beyond where an office-friendly prank can go. Unsurprisingly, it’s this particular alliterative gibe that has stuck in most memories.

A much more profound memory of that spell abroad was a semi-anonymous feature in our biannual magazine from a very talented former student of mine on a troubled relationship with her own name.

My parents thought it was beautiful to name me so when I was born. I disagree; I hate it… I hate us… I hate me. It confuses my life, influences my point of view on myself and the way I look… I feel ill at ease when I hear my name and try to hide it behind a nickname.

I’ve grown less preoccupied with my own name over time, quite possibly because in my own head, the name befits somebody older than younger. Long ago I settled on my initials as a good identity moniker among friends.

But sometimes it’s what the name represents. Many detractors of the recently deposed Prime Minister have labelled him ‘Keith’ Starmer as a political insult. If you search the name, you’ll even see AI snippets for that concocted name.

By the same token, if you spend any time on the increasingly extremist platform, X, there will often be a Keith with some horrendous take. It’s not just a name that’s ripe for parody; it’s a name that too often lives up to it.

What’s in a title?

I only visit LinkedIn every few months but recently decided to update my job details after about a year in a new role.

Part of the reason I put this off for so long was because it looks like a demotion. “You were a ‘senior’ and now you’re not – something must have happened…”

The reality is that job titles rarely match up, even within one institution.

There is a loose correlation between the types of roles offered in professional services in Higher Education and the approximate grading of them, but consistency is all over the place. It rarely makes a lot of sense, and I encountered that from the start.

At the London School of Economics and Political Science, the more that was in your job title, the more junior you were. As a Programme Administrator (Web, Communication & Events), I did just about everything and yet earned less than a Blog Editor. When I left, the department cut the job in half and increased the grade. In a parallel universe, that happens much sooner and I stay there much longer.

In 2018, I left a manager’s role at the University of London for an officer post at Greenwich with attractive terms. Three years later, upon leaving Greenwich, that post gets rebranded as a manager for my successor (with nothing else changing). I decide to borrow that new title for posterity.

At UCL, I entered a higher-grade manager position, equivalent to some department heads elsewhere. After a couple of years in post, UCL undergoes a standardisation exercise to try and establish some consistency with job titles across departments.

Our faculties adopted this nomenclature. Locally, three of us were officially rebranded as Senior Managers, albeit that was only formalised by HR for the other two and not for me. Fuck it, I thought. I’m proud of that label and I’m entitled to use it – so I did.

But central departments did not match this. So in the end, just by side-stepping, I appear to have slipped down a chasm again.

Does it really matter? We’d probably like to pretend it doesn’t affect us, even if it does. I’ve reflected recently that one of the interesting aspects of this year has been embracing an ego while containing it, within a wider team that has very little ego on show.

Yet, there is some research to suggest that job titles do make a difference. A BBC article from 2017 suggests that workers aspire to more powerful-sounding job titles, even at the expense of salary or responsibilities.

One of its case studies finds that giving employees a more senior-sounding title can make them feel happier at work. For a time, yes, I was testament to that. But I have twice left more senior-sounding titles for bigger responsibilities. The ego works in mysterious ways.

What about the case for specialists? Perhaps one of the reasons why my broader team feels less hierarchical is that most of the roles are expertise-related rather than traditional.

In fact, I’m one of the few ‘traditional’ managers. Instead, we have designers, content designers, developers, editors, UX researchers, product owners. And because these roles are unfamiliar or even unique within the institution, it’s near impossible to map them onto a traditional hierarchy. Thus, there’s less authority-led behaviour.

So yes, it does feel a bit odd to ostensibly ‘demote’. But if there’s any justice in the world, I might get less spam now on LinkedIn as I’m apparently not as ‘senior’ any more. Little victories.

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