how to get derived class name from base class

I don't know if this is what you want, and the way you'd like it implemented, but here's a try:

>>> class Person(object):
    def _type(self):
        return self.__class__.__name__


>>> p = Person()
>>> p._type()
'Person'
>>> class Manager(Person):
    pass

>>> m = Manager()
>>> m._type()
'Manager'
>>> 

Pros: only one definition of the _type method.

Python objects provide a __class__ attribute which stores the type used to make that object. This in turns provides a __name__ attribute which can be used to get the name of the type as a string. So, in the simple case:

class A(object):
    pass
class B(A):
    pass

b = B()
print b.__class__.__name__

Would give:

'B'

So, if I follow your question correctly you would do:

m = Manager()
print m.__class__.__name__
'Manager'

You can use x.__class__.__name__ to retrieve the class name as a string, e.g.

class Person:
    pass

class Manager(Person):
    pass

class Employee(Person):
    pass

def get_class_name(instance):
    return instance.__class__.__name__

>>> m = Manager()
>>> print get_class_name(m)
Manager
>>> print get_class_name(Employee())
Employee

Or, you could use isinstance to check for different types:

>>> print isinstance(m, Person)
True
>>> print isinstance(m, Manager)
True
>>> print isinstance(m, Employee)
False

So you could do something like this:

def handle_person(person):
    if isinstance(person, Manager):
        person.read_paper()     # method of Manager class only
    elif isinstance(person, Employee):
        person.work_hard()      # method of Employee class only
    elif isinstance(person, Person):
        person.blah()           # method of the base class
    else:
        print "Not a person"

Would you be looking for something like this?

>>> class Employee:
...     pass
... 
>>> class Manager(Employee):
...     pass
... 
>>> e = Employee()
>>> m = Manager()
>>> print e.__class__.__name__
Employee
>>> print m.__class__.__name__
Manager
>>> e.__class__.__name__ == 'Manager'
False
>>> e.__class__.__name__ == 'Employee'
True