What’s In A Name?
MKFreeberg at House of Eratosthenes on Mar 25 2008 at 8:10 am | Filed under: Culture Watch
My first name is Morgan, and I’ve had it for almost forty-two years.
So yeah, damn straight this is right, I can vouch for that personally.
According to an academic survey, men and women make extensive assumptions about someone’s lifestyle and character based simply on their Christian name.
[snip]
“Traditional names with royal associations are viewed as highly successful and intelligent, and so parents hoping for successful offspring might want to avoid more unusual names,” Professor [Richard] Wiseman [of Hertfordshire University] said.
“Attractive female names tended to be soft-sounding and end with the ‘ee’ sound, whereas the sexiest male names are short and much harder sounding.”
For the experiment, 7,000 volunteers were asked to imagine they were about to meet a group of men and women.
They were then given a list of 20 male and 20 female names and asked to identify who they thought would be the most successful, attractive and lucky.
Professor Wiseman found women were “more judgmental” in how they assessed others based on their name.
“Women share strong opinions about names, whereas men are more even-handed,” he said.
I can’t put a lot of stock into what the researchers figured out the names actually meant to people. The charts listed in the article, don’t quite match up with what I’d expect. And I’m inclined to continue believing what I would have originally expected.
But the idea that the names mean something to people…that seems like something that isn’t open to doubt, or shouldn’t be. Jenilee…Jerilee…Jane. Those women are going to be different.
Of course, it’s different when women try to figure out what “Morgan” means. They’re full of it. That name — people really don’t know what to make of it. Crazy? Stable? Nice guy? Pirate? Well…that’s one of the cool things about me. But it don’t matter, I’m off the market.
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