Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Lauren vog Obam here with a classic episode
Speaker 1: from our former host, Christian Sader. This is one where
Speaker 1: the research really surprised us, the topic does your name
Speaker 1: determine your future? Hey brain Stuff? This is Christian Sager.
Speaker 1: Everyone has a name. I just gave you mine. That's
Speaker 1: extraordinary though, when you think about it, because it's one
Speaker 1: of the very few social things that all human beings
Speaker 1: have in common. No matter who you are, where you live,
Speaker 1: or what you do with your life, you and everyone
Speaker 1: else has a name. You might be a Kevin, a Felicia,
Speaker 1: a Mohammed, a Holly, and so on. It's part of
Speaker 1: your identity and helps separate you from the teeming mass
Speaker 1: of humanity. But how much does your name affect you?
Speaker 1: Could it determine your future? Well, it doesn't determine your
Speaker 1: life exactly. Economists Steve Levitt and Roland Friar studied decades
Speaker 1: worth of children's names, only to find that what your
Speaker 1: parents name you doesn't really impact your economic future. So
Speaker 1: you're not doomed to poverty just because your name is
Speaker 1: Earnest or something. But your name will certainly affect your future.
Speaker 1: A study called are You Ready? Are Emily and Greg
Speaker 1: more employable than Lakisha and Jamal unearthed at least one
Speaker 1: disturbing trend about names. Job applicants with equal qualifications or
Speaker 1: even otherwise identical resumes are about fifty more likely to
Speaker 1: get a callback if they have a white sounding name.
Speaker 1: This indicates that despite numerous laws, discrimination still thrives in
Speaker 1: the workplace. Your name doesn't just tell people about you.
Speaker 1: It tells people about your parents and gives them away
Speaker 1: to place you in their vision of society. This isn't
Speaker 1: about whether their vision is correct. That's prejudice, but it
Speaker 1: does affect how people with these expectations in mindsets will
Speaker 1: address and interact with you. And that's not all. Your
Speaker 1: name may also play a role in your career. This
Speaker 1: theory is called nominative determinism, the idea that your name
Speaker 1: may affect the way you interact with the world, including
Speaker 1: anything from donations to your choice of career. For example,
Speaker 1: is someone named Helen Painter more likely to be an artist?
Speaker 1: Or is someone named Jimmy Hogg more likely to work
Speaker 1: with pigs? Matthew Meirenberg and John Jones think so in
Speaker 1: their study and here we go with another name. Why
Speaker 1: Susie sells Seashells by the Sea Shore, Implicit egotism and
Speaker 1: Major Life Decisions classic academic title. These researchers found that
Speaker 1: people are more likely to choose careers whose labels resemble
Speaker 1: their own names. So, to use one of their examples,
Speaker 1: people named Dennis or Denise are overrepresented among can you
Speaker 1: guess it Yeah dentists. Dentists Dennis, Denise, Mehrenberg, and Jones
Speaker 1: believe this happens because people prefer things that they connect
Speaker 1: with themselves, including their own names. Other scientists, like University
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania's Urie Simonson, are skeptical about this whole idea.
Speaker 1: Are we drawing tenuous conclusions where none exists just to
Speaker 1: support a neat idea? Well, for the record, Simonson does
Speaker 1: suppose that nominative determinism might explain why people named Rachel
Speaker 1: might be more likely to donate in the wake of
Speaker 1: Hurricane Rhea, because as weird as this might sound, that
Speaker 1: similarity just starting with the letter are triggered some sense
Speaker 1: of identification. We haven't even talked about name changes or
Speaker 1: the weird name changes people have tried in court. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at you, Romanico, Sir Tasty Maximilian, Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: his real name. We haven't talked about all the multi
Speaker 1: generational popularity cycle they experience either, or, as we like
Speaker 1: to call it, the rise and fall of the Brittany's
Speaker 1: and ash Leaves. Today's episode was written by Ben Bolan
Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in
Speaker 1: this and lots of other topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. Plus for more podcasts for
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