Your name's to blame
The Villain: do our names really influence our life choices?
So for years, ‘nominative determinism’ has been a running joke in publications such as New Scientist, Private Eye and Popbitch. (For those who don’t know, N.D. is the theory that a person’s name can have a significant role in determining their job, interests or even character.)
Well, this month people have started taking the theory seriously again. That’s thanks to an intriguing online film doing the rounds from the PBS Digital Studios BrainCraft Series.
In the relevant ‘ep’ (yes, I’m down with the meejah, me) winsome Oz boffin Vanessa Hill talks about how our names can influence the words we favour, which in turn influence our choices of jobs and places to live.
The phrase used to validate this ‘implicit egotism’. Well, there’s nothing like a piece of freshly-minted jargon to lend authority to a frankly ridiculous idea. It’s a bit like actors wearing white coats in washing powder commercials – if something looks or sounds scientific we’re much less likely to give it the bum’s rush.
Anyway, in the video we hear how people called Louis like to live in St Louis, and people called Phil like to live in Philadelphia. We also learn how there’s an unusually high percentage of Laura, Laurens and Lawrences working in law, Dennises and Denises working as dentists, and how people with similar names produce better work when they’re teamed together.
In other words, we can presumably bin all that Myers Briggs stuff now, because rather than building teams around a measured mix of personality types we’d seemingly be better off lobbing together a load of people called Dave.
Similarly, we can forget all that unnecessarily laborious assessment nonsense. Why bother exploring the numerical reasoning of candidates for an accountancy role, when you can just appoint Ahmed, Alan or Angelina? (Actually, Finn or Fiona might be just as well qualified, now I come to think about it.)
The predictive analytics revolution which all those Big Data fans keep banging on about can be cancelled, too. Want to know which of the workforce will actually move to the new site in Bracknell? That’ll be Brian, Jack and Nell, clearly.
And who’s going to offer the best ROI of leadership development training? Well, looks like your HIPOs are going to be Victor and Victoria. Don’t bother with Luke, Lucy or Louise – they’re all massive losers. Boot those eejits out the next chance you get.
Thinking along these lines, how could Richard Branson be anything other than rich? How could Peter Hros not be interested in HR operating systems? How could Peter Cheese be anything but mature, nutritious and excellent when served as a snack on savoury biscuits? (OK, so I may be losing the essence of the case somewhat here.)
Oh, and before I forget – that term ‘nominative determinism’ was coined by the New Scientist back in the 1990s. The debate started off in the magazine’s ‘Feedback’ column, where someone found an article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology.
The authors? A.J. Splatt and D. Weedon. Natch.
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