Cheers: you know, the Boston bar where everybody knows your name? It became a byword in the '80s for good fellowship and good times. Knowing someone's name is a Good Thing.
Only not, it seems, if you're applying for a job.
In the UK, leading companies and universities are being asked to remove names from application forms in an effort to stop "unconscious bias" against potential recruits from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.
That's right: if you have a name that sounds (somehow) black or Asian, you're less likely to get a job interview.
Research showing this has been carried out in the US, where an experiment found that: "Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback."
It was backed up by similar studies in France and in the UK, and David Cameron has now announced that the Universities admissions service, UCAS, will carry out name-blind admissions tests from 2017. Other government-run organisations and large companies are following suit.
At one level, it's just sad that it's taken so long to establish the truth of this pattern and for steps to be taken to fix it. It's sad, too – and more than sad – to think of the careers that have been stunted or never even launched because the prejudices of an employer or an admissions tutor got in the way. That someone's name, or the way they spell it – the BBC cites someone named Jorden who was advised not to use it – could radically affect their whole future career is shocking. But I wonder what's at the root of it, and it makes me worry about our Church culture.
I don't think these people consciously look at people's names and filter some of them out. I think it's much more subtle than that. I think they read everything else about a person on their CV through the lens of what they assume based on their name. Fundamentally, they want people who are like them.
That way institutions perpetuate themselves. The next generation looks like the one before it. There's a continuity of culture and identity. It makes people feel happy. It makes them feel safe.
It's unfair, exclusive and, in the end, dangerous to the institution's future.
In a world that's changing as fast as ours, institutions that prosper are those that draw on the fullest range of talents and skills imaginable. The evolution of an institution isn't about specialisation, but about diversity: the pool of abilities and perspectives needs to be as wide and deep as possible to make it competitive and productive.
Churches are no different. And the trouble is that when people are used to naming talent in a particular way – it has a particular gender, accent, vocabulary, presentation – they miss everything that people whose names are different have to bring.
So I wonder: how many churches intentionally, carefully and prayerfully listen to the voices from their margins?
Instead of trying to find people to fit particular roles, do we look for roles to fit people?
Do we imagine we know what leadership looks like, and fail to recognise people who are really worth following?
Or there's a scenario that's even worse: we can force people to change, so that instead of them being given freedom to show us more of God's nature in and through who they are, they're turned into what we expect a good Christian to look like. They have to change their name before they'll fit in.
In the Bible, a person's name was often deeply significant. It said something about their nature; their core identity.
Every individual is a unique manifestation of the power and creativity of God. Each one of us is designed to shine out his glory, as one facet of the jewel of Creation.
When we hinder that because of our blindness or prejudice, we're marring God's vision for his world.
Christians are called to do better than the world. Instead of being blind to people's names, we're called to rejoice in them, whatever they are.
Follow @RevMarkWoods on Twitter.
