What is in a name? Ask experts

 Breaking Shakespeare’s famous saying

A name can influence everything from your school grades and career choice to who you marry and where you live.

For instance; someone named Jacqueline or Steven will generally fare better in life than Latrina or Butch, say researchers, who also point to a phenomenon whereby the world’s fastest man is call Bolt, a TV weather forecaster Sarah Blizzard, and the local librarian Mrs. Storey.

“Your name can influence the assumptions that other people make about your character and background, and thus the chances you are given in life,” says Richard Wideman- a case in point, he’s a professor of psychology at University of Hertfordshire. “It can also be a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. If your name sounds intelligent, successful and attractive, you are more likely to act those things.”

A flurry of studies in recent years have examined names as predictors if success. They found that girls with perceived “feminine” names like Isabella or Kayla are less likely to pursue maths or science than those named Taylor or Madison, and that pupils with perceived ‘lower status’ names get worse grades than others from the same background but with different names. “Names can really make a difference in children’s lives,” Northwestern University researcher David Figlio, who has written several papers on the topic, says. Research has pointed to a clear, though probably subconscious, tendency for people to prefer things that resemble themselves – including the letters of their names.

Denises are more likely to become dentists than dermatologists, while Lawrences are overrepresented among lawyers and Raymonds among radiologists. There are many ironic examples as well: former Archbishop of Manila Cardinal (Jamie) Sin, pain relief expert Dr. Richard Payne and the British urologist Nicolas Burns-Cox.

Sometimes a name can denote disappointment. Psychologist Ernest L Able (who says, yes, he is an earnest person) cites research showing that professional baseball players whose first or last names begin with a ‘K’, the letter that denotes strikeout, are more likely to strike out than others.

Students pursuing MBA degrees whose names begin with a C or D have lower averages than those whose names begin with A or B, and one study even suggested that people whose names spell out negative words like PIG were more likely to die prematurely, while those with positive initials like VIP live longer.

In a further twist, people named Louis are disproportionally represented in the state of St Louis, and statistics show that people whose first or last names resemble their own.

Much of the evidences are not based on facts, and there are many people who succeed despite potentially problematic names- take Barack Hussein Obama who joked in 2008: “I got my middle name form somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for president.”

Others dealt a wildcard include celebrity children Apple, Jermajesty, Moon Unit and Dweezil. And spare a thought for Stan Still, Justine Case and bard Dwyer. No kidding, “Names make impressions, just as the way you clothe your (child) or, the way you groom them makes an impression,” insisted University of California emeritus psychology professor Albert Mehrabian, who authored a book on ‘Beneficial and Harmful Baby Names.’ “People with ‘undesirable’ names do get treated differently,” he said- people give the same photograph a different score for attractiveness based only on the name, and the same exam paper with different signatures will be given two different marks. “I attribute this to low teacher and societal expectations for the children,” said Figlio. Mehrabian, who conducted a more than 10-year survey in United States on the ‘attractiveness’ of names lists Elizabeth, Jacqueline, Holly, Ann and Mary as the top five names for girls and James, Steven, Christopher, Kenneth and Thomas for boys. Mehrabian has advice for all new parents: “Never spell a name in unconventional way…… the desirability profile drops drastically.” “Don’t try to be clever or artistic,” he added. “Overall I would say avoid unusual names.”