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Americans pride themselves in living in the "land of opportunity." Rags-to-riches stories continue to appeal because they embody the idea that people can be free from social constraints and class systems. People hope that anyone—no matter where they're from—can achieve the American Dream through initiative and hard work.

However, great wealth can hinge on something as simple as a name.Surnames examined academic research to see how a person's name could determine their social status and ability to become successful.

Many economists have researched intergenerational social mobility through different lenses.

World Bank researcherRoy van der Weide and a team of economists studied social mobility in terms of educational achievement being the key to future success. They found that people in developing countries don't have the same opportunities for education as high-income nations, so the opportunity to move to different social strata is also lower.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development studied social mobility through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic, finding that economically disadvantaged people had trouble accessing educational resources. Inflation and employment recovery also created more challenges, keeping lower-income workers from advancement.

Many of these findings do not come as a surprise, but economist Gregory Clark's research published in his book, "The Son Also Rises" stands out because it looks at something people are born with—a surname—rather than a situation people are born into. Clark suggests that in America and elsewhere, vast changes in social mobility are much lower than commonly believed, dashing the notion that in America, most people can bootstrap their way to success.

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