Does Your Name Determine Your Future?

How much does your name actually matter? Are some names going to make you rich, while others make you poor?

Everyone has a name. That’s extraordinary when you think about it, because it’s one of the very few social things that all human beings have in common. You might be a Kevin, a Felicia (bye!), a Muhammahad, a Holly, and so on. It’s part of your identity, and helps separate you from the teeming mass of humanity. But how much does your name affect you? Could it determine your future?

Well… it doesn’t determine your life, exactly. Economists Steve Levitt and Roland Fryer studied decades’ worth of children’s names only to find that what your parents name you doesn’t really impact your economic future. So you’re not doomed to poverty just because your name is Ernest or something.

But your name will certainly affect your future. A study called “Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal?” by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan unearthed at least one disturbing trend about names. Job applicants with equal qualifications – or even otherwise identical resumes – are about 50% more likely to get a callback if they have a “white-sounding name”. This indicates that, despite numerous laws, discrimination still thrives in the workplace.

Your name doesn’t just tell people about you – it tells people about your parents, and gives them a way to ‘place’ you in their vision of society. This isn’t about whether their vision is correct – that’s a prejudice – but it does affect how people with these expectations and mindsets will address and interact with you.

And that’s not all. Your name may also play a role in your career. This theory is called “nominative determinism”, the idea that your name may affect the way you interact with the world, including anything from donations to your choice of career.

For example, is someone named “Helen Painter” more likely to be an artist? Is someone named “Jimmy Hogg” more likely to work with pigs?

Matthew Mirenberg and John Jones think so. In their study “Why Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore: Implicit Egotism and Major Life Decisions”, these researchers found that people are more likely “choose careers whose labels resemble their own names.”

So, to use one of their examples, people named Dennis or Denise are overrepresented among… can you guess? Yep. Dentists.

Mirenberg and Jones believe this happens because people prefer things that they connect with themselves, including their names.

Other scientists, like University of Pennsylvania’s Uri Simonsohn, are skeptical about this whole idea. Are we drawing tenous conclusions where none exist, just to support a neat idea?

We haven’t even talked about name changes – or the weird name changes people have tried in court. I’m looking at you, Romanceo Sir Tasty Maxibillion. We haven’t talked about all the multigenerational popularity cycle they experience – or, as I like to call it, the rise and fall of Brittanies and Ashleys.

So let me know what you think. What do you think your name says about you?

SOURCES:

[anallydead]

My first name is Alfredo and I am a Chef haha. its so related .

[ridleywallace]

As a person with a unique name, I never found one of those personal name things you see in gift shops. When I received my first student recognition award with my name on it, in elementary school, it was one of my happiest moments.

[chimkinNuggz]

Ha jokes on them. Im hispanic N I have the whitest name "Alan". So they're gonna regret their decision when i show up in a low rider and sumbrerro.

[Thumbsupurbum]

So is Ben Bowlin also a bowling champion?

[waltereg]

It isn't racist or disturbing. It's classist, but realistic. If your name is Jammall or Laquisha then your parents were most likely of lower economic status, whereas if you're black and your name is Jake or Kathy, then your parents might probably be college educated and higher income. Smart, successful black parents are not going to give their kids a name that sounds ghetto. But a teenage highschool dropout single mom might just name her baby something that sounds "cool" to her but which broadcasts the circumstances of her baby's origin and upbringing.

[Waterlooplein]

You will think I am lying but it's true. My navy recruiter's name was Lee Shipman.

[creamybass]

Dear humans, don't name your boy Ashley, Sincerely Ashley.

[novacado]

My name's Aaron

I'm gonna be an air conditioner

[Sapphiregriffin]

I can tell you that my name makes me feel like a minimum wage worker.

I hardly erver see people with my name in something other than minimum wage jobs..

So im changing it to Mack maybe

[yoginitaware]

I'm Yogini (One who performs Yoga ) but tbh I don't exercise, neither I'm religious person 🤷‍♀️

[alvinbarrios]

So Watermelondra may not have been the best choice for my daughter?

[aloha]

Fun thing: my mom's name is Yolanda so sometimes when cashiers ask for a phone number for a discount I give them hers and so they think that's my name. I am green eyed and on the pale side and I've had more than one person say "interesting name" or ask if it's a family name yet my mom never gets that and she is darker and brown eyed. I guess people expect Yolandas to be black or hispanic and when they see me, the name doesn't match the face

That worked different for that woman named: "Marijuana Pepsi Sawyer".
Yeah, this isn't a joke.

[Sparring_Reaper]

I have been teased multiple times about my name and that definitely affects me.

[Farfromhere]

I currently work with the Machiguenga people in the Amazon and they told me in times past they didn't have names. They lived in small family groups in the forest and only called each other "mother", "brother", "son" and so on...

[arthur]

My Muslim family called me Ahmad, not a "white sounding" name, even though I am white, and grew up to not be a Muslim. Not a fan of my name. And I guess I might have picked Arthur as a nickname because it's kind of similar to my real name?

[Chiffawndue]

My first name is Mallory and means bad/ill willed. My last name means drunken man.

I’m certainly not going to do anything bad or become a drunk. I’m going to go on and become an artist. Hopefully at my dream job.

[shergill]

My name is Manpreet.. It means hearts happiness... I like helping others that why i took a job as a carer.
The video makes sense to me...

[anotherfreediver]

There are alphabet surname effects as well. In the UK, we're 50–50 A–M and N–Z in the phone book (remember them?) But ... in positions of power, like MPs and military commanders, you're more likely to get 2/3 A–M and 1/3 N–Z. When you get to prime ministers, it's even more extreme: when I last counted, I think it was 22 A–M, and just 3 or 4 N–Z, including (of course) the last two. Before then we'd had only two (Wilson and Thatcher) since 1900, IIRC. Science and technology, by contrast, is heavily weighted towards the N–Zs, again by about 2/3 when I last looked ... and yes, I'm a scientist with a surname beginning with S.

[RRaquello]

How about going the opposite way. If your last name is Payne, for instance, does that make you more or less likely to become a dentist? I mean, would a person hesitate to go to a dentist named Dr. Payne, and should this discourage people named Payne from studying dentistry. Well, some very quick research on Google, I typed in "Dr. Payne DDS" and a whole bunch of dentists named "Payne" came up, so maybe being named "Payne" subconsciously connects a person to the study of dentistry. He/she is named "Payne", so this makes one subconsciously want to inflict "pain". Let the researchers dig into that.