How your name can affect your personality

We know that many factors in our upbringing influence our personality, from the warmth and severity of our parents to their generosity and aggressiveness. But a fact that often goes unnoticed is the consequences of this particularly important gift they gave us: our name.

It is often the parents who name their children. For many, it is a test of creativity or a way to express their own personality or identity through their offspring. But what they probably don’t take into account is that the choices you make about your children could influence how others perceive you and ultimately the kind of person this child will become.

“Because a name is used to identify an individual and to communicate with him on a daily basis, it serves as the basis even for the conception of oneself, especially in relation to others”, explains David Zhu, psychologist at the University of Arizona ( USA) researching the psychology of names.

Of course, there are many factors that shape our personality and part of it is influenced by our genes.

the training experiences plays a very important role, just like the people he spends time with and ultimately the roles that are assumed in life, whether at work or with family.

In the midst of all these dynamics, it’s easy to forget the role names play, a very personal influence that it is imposed on us from birth and that it usually stays with us throughout life (unless we take the trouble to change it).

The influence of names

At a basic level, our names can reveal details about our ethnicity or other aspects of our origin, which in a world of social prejudice, it has inevitable consequences.

For example, a US investigation following the 9/11 attacks found that a person with an Arabic-sounding name was less likely to complete a job interview than a person with a white-sounding name.

This is unfair in many ways, especially since names turn out to be an unreliable indicator of our origin. The consequences should not be taken lightly, but that is not where the influence of names ends. Even within the same culture, names can be common or rare, they can have some positive or negative connotations in terms of meaning, and they can be seen as attractive or old-fashioned and unpleasant (although these opinions may change over time. time with the modes too).

The names we don’t like

In turn, these characteristics of our names inevitably affect the way others treat us Yes how we feel about ourselves. A 2000s study by American psychologist Jean Twenge found that people who disliked their own name tended to have a poorer psychological adjustment.

It was probably because their lack of confidence and self-esteem made them hate his name. Or that the fact that they didn’t like him contributed to their lack of confidence: “The name becomes a symbol of self,” the researchers write. When it comes to how names affect the way others treat us, a German study published in 2011 asked users of a dating site if they wanted their potential encounters analyzed based on the names involved.

Jochen Gebauer and his colleagues discovered that people with “old-fashioned” names at that time (like Kevin) were more likely to be rejected, compared to people with more modern names (like Alexander).

This fact could be indicative of how these people have been treated throughout their lives, how their names may have shaped the way people have treated them more generally. In turn, also the type of person they have become.

In fact, new research to be published, also conducted in Germany, has found that participants were less likely to help a stranger with a frowned upon name (Cindy and Chantal were the most cited) compared to the names rated positively. (Sophie and Marie).

One can imagine that it is difficult to be a loving and trustworthy person (who has a great “kindness” in terms of personality traits) in the face of a repeated rejection in life by virtue of its name. Another part of the dating study confirmed this: People who meet old-fashioned names, which were rejected more often, also they tended to be less educated and to have lower self-esteem.

It was almost as if the rejection they had suffered on the dating platform mirrored the way life had played out more generally. Other recent work similarly suggests the damaging consequences of having an unpopular or negative sounding name. Huajian Cai and his colleagues at the Beijing Institute of Psychology recently compared the names of hundreds of thousands of people with the risk of being convicted of crimes.

They found that people with names considered unpopular or with more negative connotations had more likely to be involved in a crime. Our names can have these consequences, Cai says, because they can affect how we feel about ourselves and how others treat us.

“Since a good or a bad name has the potential (…) to produce good or bad results, I suggest that parents find all ways to give their baby a good name according to their own culture” , he said.

Benefits

So far, these studies highlight the seemingly harmful consequences of having a negative or unpopular name. But some recent findings also point to possible beneficial consequences it could have a name. For example, have a more “sonorous” name that flows easily (like in English Marla) versus an abrupt sounding name (like Eric or Kirk), then people are likely to prejudge what is nicer, with all the advantages that this can bring.

Additionally, while a less common name may be disadvantageous in the short term (increasing the risk of rejection and decreasing their taste), it could have long term benefits in generating a person a greater sense of your personal uniqueness.

Another study by Cai and his team at the Beijing Institute of Psychology showed that have a stranger name was associated with a higher likelihood of have a more unusual career, as director or judge. “Early in life, some people may derive a sense of unique identity from their relatively unique names,” the researchers explain, suggesting that this meaning fuels a “distinctive pattern” that prompts them to find an unusual career that matches their identity. .

It seems to remind something of the call “Nominative determinism”, the idea that the meanings of our names influence our life decisions (apparently explains the abundance of neurologists called Dr. Brain [cerebro, en inglés] and similar funny things). Having an unusual name might even shape us be more creative and open-minded, according to research by Zhu and colleagues at Arizona State University.

They reviewed the names of CEOs of over 1,000 companies and found that the rarer their names, the more distinctive the business strategies they implemented, especially if they were also more confident by nature.

What to choose ?

For a future father, you might be wondering if you should go for a common and popular name, or if you should give them an original name. “Common and unusual names are associated with advantages and disadvantages, so expectant parents they should know the pros and cons it doesn’t matter what kind of names you give your child, ”Zhu advises.

Maybe the trick is to find a way to have the best of both worlds choose a common name that can be easily changed into something more distinctive. “If you give a child a very common name, it is likely that the child will have an easier time being accepted and liked by others in the short term,” advises Zhu.

“But parents must find ways to help the child appreciate his uniqueness, perhaps by giving him a special nickname or by frequently stating the child’s unique characteristics.”

BBC Mundo

Conocé The Trust Project