What is in a name?

In one respect, starting a blog has taken me back to my early days as an academic economist.  Since I have an unusual name, references to my work initially often employed a variation on Rodrik, typically "Rodrick."  I was happy enough to get referred to, so I didn't fret too much about it, and in due time, the misspelling virtually disappeared. I took that as a definitive sign of having made it.

But I have been reliving this experience in the last couple of days, ever since Greg Mankiw set off (I think he is the one) an avalanche of references and links to my new blog.  "Rodrick" has remade its appearance, along with other imaginative variations. See here, here, and here.

Once again, I have no complaints. I have been called a lot worse things in recent years...

And in case you are interested (and let me know if you are), I will tell the longer story of how I got my name in some later entry.

Comments

[Sergio]

Hi Prof. Rodrik.

I`m very interested in you tellig us the story about your name. in fact, I believe that it was my first error which made you remember the problems that you have had with the people who do not write well your name or commit mistakes (But I`m glad to see that I was not the only blogger who commit the same mistake writing Rodrick!!)

I´ll be wainting for your story.

Regards

Sergio

[happyjuggler0]

My real question is how often you get referred to as "she"? And has this changed over time as well? Or do people simply assume that as an economist a guess that you are male would have at least 2 jsd's confidence of being correct?

[constantpardoner]

I must shamefully admit that I made the 'she' mistake on one of my first graduate school response papers. However, I consider it a fortuitous mistake; I felt compelled to visit your faculty web page and I've been reading your work ever since!

[Rafe Champion]

Contra "Economic Dreams" I don't think that Rodrik has turned against a fundamentally market approach, he is just reminding us to do a thorough situational analysis and avoid the "one size fits all" approach.
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[Miguel Almunia]

The long story of your name had something to do with the Rodriguez's in 16th Century Spain, didn't it?

[Ben]

Well, that at least would concur with what Dr. Chang told us over here at Cambridge! Now I can't recall what it had to do with development economics specifically, but I take there must have been a link.

[Basak Beyazay]

Remembering the example in the class, Dr Chang was talking about the misperceptions of the cultures. He was talking about how Islamic culture is currently considered by many as intolerant towards other cultures and degrading women. He said these common perceptions are wrong and gave few examples. One of the examples was the fact that the Ottoman Empire with Islamic culture welcoming immigrants from Spain and ensuring them safe place to live when this was not the case in Europe. Among the families, there was the family of Mr Rodrik. The family name was Rodriguez but became Rodrik in Turkey. He also mentioned the number of women economists in central bank of Malaysia being higher than any central bank in Europe. .. Etc. Since I am Turkish, I recall well the examples related to this subject.

Mr Rodrik,as mentioned I am Turkish student here in Cambridge working on Development Studies in the department directed by Mr Chang. I have read the majority of all your papers&books and I am very happy to discover this blog thanks to Ben.

All the best,

Saglicakla kalin,

BASAK

[pgl]

I have to admit to have a few posts where I was sloppy and misspelled someone's name. My secret is the same as knzn's - no vowels in our made-up blog name. Cheers - PGL!

[Carl Marks]

Sorry bout the misspelling. The problem actually comes in that the spell check says your name is wrong and recommends the Rodrick spelling. I probably should have double checked that one.

[Dave Iverson]

Sorry about the mis-spelling of your name in My Econ Dreams-Nightmares blog, a mistake I repeated again this AM in another post, then corrected in both places.

I must have a problem in not seeing spelling differences. A form of dyslexia? I even looked at your name a couple of times in the paper I referenced when I first plugged your blog. Still I messed it up. Too hurried I guess.

In any case I just wanted you to know that I, like others, think you've already breathed new life and new challenges into in particular Mark Thoma's, Brad DeLong's, and David Altig's bloging. Not that they weren't doing a great job before.

I'm now more than ever "along for whatever ride" you take us on. Thanks.

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