How Does Your Name Express Your Personality Elton John?

known as ‘Reggie”, from Reginald Kenneth Dwight, 

a very kind of '50s English name I wasn’t too fond of.

When Juliet utters these immortal lines: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by the opposite name would smell as sweet." That these words have been quoted and remembered over so many years, is perhaps because they express a fundamental truth - or indeed truths.

Language is representative of reality in a similar way a portrait is some kind of likeness of a person. Is it then a giant step or bizarre notion to think that your personalized name may also in some ways influence or even determine your character and proclivities? “Hang on a minute!"

When I come to analyze my behavior around names I realize I'm almost always on that balcony with the cheeky Professor Capulet. To ask, "What's in a name?" seems an entirely valid question. Yet when it involves our own selves, we wish to be indubitably true that their is much in our personalized name. We desire to be fully recognized for who we are, and seek in our very ascription of our personal name the means of uniting our intimate identities with our social selves. Whether our first name, last name, nickname or family name - this is who we are, truly, madly, deeply.

At a core level, our personalized name reveals details about our ethnicity, lineage, and other aspects of our family background and heritage, which in a vast world of ever changing social bias carries inevitable influence - opportunities and consequences alike. This can feel impactful of many levels, particularly because names may be an unreliable indicator of family gifts and backgrounds bestowed.

These influences and impacts should not be taken lightly, and that’s just where the importance, prestige, and significance of your personalized names begins. Even within one single culture, personalized custom names that are common or rare may have different effect and interpretation in terms of their meaning. In different circles there may be different reactions, the same name seen as appealing and fashionable, or not. And of course those views can change over time with the fashions as well. In turn, these features of our personalized names inevitably affect how others treat us and in turn affects the way we feel about ourselves.

A study from the 2000s led by US psychologist Jean Twenge, found that, even after controlling for family background and general satisfaction with life, those that liked their own personalized name tended to have more positive psychological adjustment. This was presumably either because their increase in confidence and self-esteem caused them to like their personalized name or liking their name contributed to their boost of confidence – "the personalized name becomes an emblem of the self", Twenge wrote.

In terms of how personalized names affect the ways we're treated by others, consider a German study published in 2011, during which users of a dating site were asked whether or not they'd like to follow up on potential dates just on the basis of their name. The scientist found that people with personalized names considered fashionable at the time were more likely to be desired, as compared with people with less as in-style names of the times.

How A Unique Name Influences Your Personality & Your Career:

An unusual or unique name might not only shape your personality but your career as well. A less common personalized name could be advantageous in the longer-term by engendering and boosting in you a heightened sense of your personal uniqueness. Consider another new study - even after controlling for family and socioeconomic backgrounds, the scientists found that having a more unusual and unique name was related to increased odds of having a more unusual unique life career choice as well, like filmmaker or judge.

"Early in life, some people may derive a sense of unique identity from their relatively unique names," the researchers say, putting forth that this personalized name - and the feelings connected with your personalized name - fuels a "distinctiveness motive" that drives us to find an unusual career path that matches our personalized identity. This seems to be somewhat reminiscent of what is called “nominative determinism" – the thought that the personalized meaning of our names influences our life decisions. (Apparently explaining the abundance of neurologists called “Dr Brain” and similarly amusing oddities).

Having an unusually unique personalized name might even shape us to be more creative and open-minded, in line with research by Zhu at Arizona State University and his colleagues. Zhu's team cross-checked the personalized names of the chief executives at over 1000 firms and found that the more unique names were, the more distinctive and creative the business strategies they tended to pursue were, especially if they were also more confident naturally. Zhu states a similar explanation to Cai and his colleagues, "CEOs with an uncommon unique name tend to develop a self-conception of being different from peers, motivating them to pursue unconventional strategies," he says.

The Affects of How Others Feel About Your Name On Your Personality:

If the dating game is broadly characteristic of how people are treated through life, it's easy to see how their personalized names may have shaped how people generally treated them, and in turn the kind of person they themselves became.

Our personalized names can have these affects, says Cai, because they can influence how we feel about ourselves and in turn the way others may treat us. "Since a personalized name with positive prestige has the potential to produce good results, I suggest parents should ponder this in terms of their own culture when selecting their baby name.” he says.

Recent studies continue to support the potential beneficial consequences that your personalized name might have. For example if you have a more "sonorant" sounding name that flows easily, like music to our ears, it's likely people will feel you to be more agreeable in nature, with all the advantages that could bring.

If you are a prospective parent, you'd possibly be wondering whether to select such a popularly styled personalized name, perhaps thereby possibly enhancing your children's popularity and likeability as well. Or perhaps there is another strategy, to give them an original moniker, potentially helping them to feel special and act more creatively.

Best of Both Worlds:

"Common and uncommon names are both associated with advantages and disadvantages, so expectant parents should be aware of the pros and cons no matter what types of names they give to their child," advises Zhu.

Perhaps the trick could be to find a way to have the best of both worlds - by choosing a perhaps more common popular personalized name that is easily modified into something more personally distinctive. "If [you] give a child a very common name, the child is likely to have an easier time being accepted and liked by others in the short-term," Zhu advises. "But parents need to find ways to help the child appreciate his or her uniqueness, perhaps by giving the child a special nickname or frequently affirming the child's unique characteristics".

What’s in a Name?

Our first name, last name, family name, nickname and all the personalized names we are given, affect our personality, appearance and who we become. Our personalized name influences so much.

Sometimes we strive to live up to our personalized names. Sometimes we want to run away from them. But either way — and for all the options available — your personalized name is a critical factor in developing your sense of self, and in so doing helps propel you forward on distinct and varied paths of life and career.

Although rarely said yourself, your personalized name is more meaningfully important than you may possibly have imagined. Your personalized name is a essential part of your identity, part of who you are at your core, as much along with your culture and heritage.

by Lexi Stewart 


Editor
 - Decor, Design & Personal Style Ideas 

AlphabetPIX 

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