Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Saturday April 12 2014, @12:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the call-me-what-you-will dept.

The BBC has an article about how a name can affect someone throughout their life. One table shows the chance of attending Oxford with a given name, and a graph shows the downward trend of naming children one of the top 50 most popular names.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kstox on Saturday April 12 2014, @02:20AM

    by kstox (2066) on Saturday April 12 2014, @02:20AM (#30402)

    with my name. It does give me an interesting perspective. With the advent of Google, it does stifle my career in crime, though.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Saturday April 12 2014, @04:42PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday April 12 2014, @04:42PM (#30550) Journal

    Funny, but as a person with an unusual name (I'm 45 and have never met anyone else with my name, although twice in my life I have heard about people naming a kid with _my_ name (kinda ticked me off actually) and once someone who named their dog with my name (didn't care)). It isn't a made up name or strange spelling, just very very very old. Anyway, an unusual name makes it stupidly easy to google me. I can't really say that I like that, and there are times I wish I was a "Bob Smith" -- people with names like that are almost impossible to google successfully.

    Other things about having an unusual name (not necessarily good or bad):
    -- More people know you than you know. This can be good for business, bad for privacy.

    -- You become completely unperturbed by misspellings or mispronunciations of your name. Personally, if people get the main consonant right and couple that with any short vowel sound, I call it good and don't say anything.

    -- Things get filed under your first name. This is good if you want that parking ticket lost forever, bad if you aren't getting some discount because last and first got switched.

    -- It's a good obvious icebreaker for people to use with you. Can make meeting new people easier (especially for a non-gregarious person like myself) because people almost always make a comment about my name on hearing it for the first time, and I've built up a list of amusing responses, so it helps me get by that initial awkwardness.

    All in all, I wouldn't trade my name for anything, even with the google issue -- I would hate having to share my name with others around me. Maybe that's bad -- other people share their names, and maybe there is something egotistical about not wanting to share. But I don't. It's my name dammit -- go get your own name (this of course ignores the fact that my parents borrowed my name when they picked it ... still, it's mine now!).