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