National Buffoon asks the musical question..."WTF?"
Were the parents of these people sadists?
These names are bad enough
to merit letting them be guest National Buffoon corespondents.
To the best of our knowledge these are legitimate actual names.
Though prejudging someone based on their name might seem unfair, we do so when making decisions. , for example, that
those with an Oriental name are thought to be good at maths, so an
employer looking to hire a computer programmer might push an application
to the top of the pile if they see a Chinese name .
Names don’t just give away your ethnic background –we
also associate specific names with a person’s perceived ability to do a
job. Who would be a better American football player, someone
whose name is Bronco or Colt, or someone named Francis or Percival?”
Such stereotyping, by ourselves as well as others, might explain why
some people seem to have picked occupations that suit their
name, a phenomenon dubbed ‘nominative determinism’ in the behavioral sciences. Record-breaking
sprinter Usain Bolt is just one example of a ‘Mr Bun... the Baker’ from the
real world.
Here are a few more:
- Bonnie Beaver (Ob/Gyn of course!)
- Brad Hammer (carpenter)
- Chip Stone (sculptor)
- Edward Z. Filler (DDS...though he may have been tempted to become a porn star)
- H. Wayne Carver (Connecticut medical examiner who ironically carves up dead people.)
The ‘me’ in name
The letters of our name can have an influence on the career path
we might choose to follow. According to psychologist Dr Brett Pelham,
an analyst for statistics firm Gallup, people have a tendency to follow
professions that resemble their first names, meaning that lawyers called
Laura and dentists named Dennis are especially common. “When I lived in
LA, there was a dentist named Dennis Smiler – you can’t have a much
better match than that!”
Pelham’s 2002 research paper entitled ‘Why Susie Sells Seashells by
the Seashore’ describes how this ‘name-letter effect’ can influence our
life choices. It’s an effect so far-reaching that it goes beyond
alliteration (more seashell shops are owned by Sheryls than Cheryls) and
can even influence where we’ll choose to live: women named Georgia are disproportionately more likely to move to the state of Georgia, and men
called Louis are over-represented in Louisiana.
For the study, Pelham mined the archived census records from
south-eastern US states. When he scrutinized marriage records, he also
found that names can also affect who we’ll choose to wed – people with
common surnames like Smith are more likely to marry another Smith than a
Johnson.
The name-letter effect is caused by what Pelham calls ‘implicit
egotism’. In other words, we’re all unconsciously attracted to things
that remind us of ourselves – including the letters in our names. “If
you notice even some fragment of your name, it catches your attention
and creates a positive association for you,” says Pelham.
In one experiment, his team subliminally paired people’s names with a
random number on a computer screen for 1/100th of a second. During this
70-second conditioning process, the participants were shown multiple
name-number combinations. When they were later asked to evaluate a woman
wearing an American football jersey, both male and female participants
judged the woman more favorably when the number on her jersey
corresponded to their own name. “They’re completely unaware that that’s the
basis for the preference,” said Pelham.
A is for Achievement
Names also hold the secret to success. In 2006, American economists
looked at the link between surnames and academic prominence, finding
that those with initials early in the alphabet were markedly more likely
to work in prestigious university departments and win a Nobel Prize.
This ‘alphabetical discrimination’ was probably due to the fact that
the authors of academic papers are often listed in alphabetical order.
And as Professor Richard Wiseman (yep! that's his name) from the University of Hertfordshire
points out, we’re used to associating things at the top of a list as
winners, “Over time, it wouldn’t surprise me if you had this
psychological effect.”
Whether it’s being called for the school register or a job interview,
people with the top names have got used to being first. To test this
theory, Wiseman invited Telegraph readers to rate how successful they
thought they were in assorted aspects of their life – including career,
finances, health and ‘life in general’. The scores were then combined
into an overall measure of success.
The 15,000 people who responded
also provided their age, sex and
surname. “We saw that the further down the alphabet your surname came,
the less likely you were to be successful,” says Wiseman.
This bond between surname and perceived success was stronger in older
age groups, which might be because past generations were more likely to
have been ordered alphabetically in the classroom. “So it’s possible
the As and Bs got more attention from the teacher or were simply better
behaved because they were towards the front, and therefore got higher
grades.”
The sound of success
Names can also make you more successful with the opposite sex. In
another of Wiseman’s name experiments, 6000 members of the British
public were asked to rate the 40 most popular first names for various
qualities, including attractiveness, luck and success.
“For intelligence and success it was the royal names that came top –
the Jameses and the Elizabeths,” says Wiseman. “This is one of those
self-fulfilling prophecies: if you have a name which sounds intelligent
or attractive, then you could be treated differently, or behave in a
different way.”
Psychologists note that stereotypes tend to be shallow assumptions
that are often wiped out once you find out more about someone or meet
them in person. George for instance was at the bottom of the list in the sexiness dept., but I bet few would see George Clooney as unattractive right? And though Frank Zappa may have always been last on alphabetical lists, he was very successful....so these are generalities obviously....not mandates.
Precisely why certain names are understood to be more attractive is still
unknown, but one guess is that they may be subtle cues as to masculinity
or femininity. And whether a name sounds boyish or girlish also affects
success at school, says David Figlio, a professor of economics at
Northwestern University in Illinois.
“Names such as Ashley started out as boys’ names but nowadays they’re
popular girls’ names,” says Figlio, who studies the social consequences
of names. His work has shown that boys with androgynous names tend to
misbehave and become disruptive as soon as they hit high school. “A boy
named Ashley gets teased and feels more self-conscious, particularly if
there’s a girl with the same name in the class. They bring the test
scores in their entire class down with them.”
This stereotyping might also dictate our occupations; girls with
feminine-sounding names like Elizabeth are less likely to study science,
meaning that the parents’ choice of name could send their daughter down
a particular career path.
Figlio created linguistics software that assigns a ‘femininity score’
to names and tracked the school subjects chosen by 1000 pairs of
sisters. The program gives higher scores to names like Elizabeth,
which contains several soft consonant sounds (‘z’ in the middle and ‘th’
at the end), and longer names (girls’ names tend to be longer). When you
run these factors through the computer, names like Alex are rated as
less feminine.
“Even if you limit it to only the girls who were performing in the
top 15 per cent on US math exams, Elizabeth is more likely to choose
the humanities,” says Figlio, “and Alex would take advanced maths and
science.” Success in school is another self-fulfilling prophecy, as
stereotypes associated with feminine names are reinforced by society,
including teachers, parents and even the girls themselves.
Spelling trouble
A poll of 3000 UK teachers found that almost half admitted imagining
what new pupils would be like after seeing a new school register.
Although this might be unsettling for parents to hear, it’s difficult to
blame the teachers because many of their assumptions will be based on
past experiences.
The survey revealed that a third of teachers claimed they could spot
trouble in names like Callum, Crystal and Chardonnay, but also
considered kids on such a ‘naughty list’ often to be bright, sensitive
and more popular than those who were better behaved.
And while parents might want to give their children a distinctive
label so that they stand out from the crowd, they should also consider
the long-term psychological effects. A 1960s study of psychiatric
records found that those with unusual names were more likely to be
diagnosed psychotic, while recent research has shown that boys with the
least popular names are more likely to commit crime.
Unusual names convey a lot of other information too, such as social
standing. “In the US, there are distinctively black names that signify
higher classes, and names that might connote lower class,” says Figlio.
Ebony, for instance, is sometimes given to girls by female university
graduates, but rarely by mothers who drop out of school. Teachers pick
up on this and treat children differently.
“Parents should give their children whatever name they want, but they
need to recognize that names have consequences,” says Figlio. “Is a
name
a guaranteed ladder to success? Of course not. But can a name make
your life a little bit easier? Yes, it would seem so. And in the case of the these pitiable people whose photos grace the pages of this post one can only scratch ones head and be thankful for our own unique names....unless of course your name is Peter Puller, Connie Lingus, Edith McCrotch, or Phil McCracken.
