The 15,000 people who responded also provided their age, sex and surname. The scores were then combined into an overall measure of success.
To test this theory, Wiseman invited Telegraph readers to rate how successful they thought they were in assorted aspects of their life – including career, finances, health and ‘life in general’. Whether it’s being called for the school register or a job interview, people with the top names have got used to being first. And as Professor Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire points out, we’re used to associating things at the top of a list as winners, “Over time, it wouldn’t surprise me if you had this psychological effect.” This ‘alphabetical discrimination’ was probably due to the fact that the authors of academic papers are often listed in alphabetical order. In 2006, American economists looked at the link between surnames and academic prominence, finding that those with initials early in the alphabet were markedly more likely to work in prestigious university departments and win a Nobel Prize. “They’re completely unaware that that’s the basis for the preference,” says Pelham. When they were later asked to evaluate a woman wearing an American football jersey, both male and female participants judged the woman more favourably when the number on her jersey corresponded to their name. During this 70-second conditioning process, the participants were shown multiple name-number combinations. In one experiment, his team subliminally paired people’s names with a random number on a computer screen for 1/100th of a second. “If you notice even some fragment of your name, it catches your attention and creates a positive association for you,” says Pelham.
In other words, we’re all unconsciously attracted to things that remind us of ourselves – including the letters in our names. The name-letter effect is caused by what Pelham calls ‘implicit egotism’. When he scrutinised marriage records, he also found that names can also affect who we’ll choose to wed – people with common surnames like Smith are more likely to marry another Smith than a Johnson. It’s an effect so far-reaching that it goes beyond alliteration (more seashell shops are owned by Sheryls than Cheryls) and can even influence where we’ll choose to live: women named Georgia are disproportionally more likely to move to the state of Georgia, and men called Louis are over-represented in Louisiana.įor the study, Pelham mined the archived census records from south-eastern US states. Pelham’s 2002 research paper entitled ‘ Why Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore’ describes how this ‘name-letter effect’ can influence our life choices. “When I lived in LA, there was a dentist named Dennis Smiler – you can’t have a much better match than that!” According to psychologist Dr Brett Pelham, an analyst for statistics firm Gallup, people have a tendency to follow professions that resemble their first names, meaning that lawyers called Laura and dentists named Dennis are especially common.
The ‘me’ in nameĮven the letters of our name can have an influence on the career path we might choose to follow. Record-breaking sprinter Usain Bolt is just one example of a ‘Mr Bun the Baker’ from the real world. Such stereotyping, by ourselves as well as others, might explain why some people seem to have picked occupations that perfectly suit their name, a phenomenon dubbed ‘nominative determinism’. Names don’t just give away your ethnic background – Bruning says we also associate specific names with a person’s perceived ability to do a job, “Who would be a better American football player,” he asks, “someone whose name is Bronco or Colt, or someone named Francis or Percival?”
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