There was a new person coming to the school and I knew his or her name was written “Isa.” I thought this name was pronounced “i” as in ice, “s” as in see, and “a” as in around. From this, I assumed it was a nickname for “Isaiah” which further led me to believe this new person was a boy with a Jewish or Christian background. However, I soon realised that my pronunciation of “Isa” was incorrect. I should have been pronouncing the “i” as an “ee” sound. I immediately saw that I was mistaken with this person’s identity, who I now thought to be a European girl with no definite religion. When meeting “Isa” face to face, she turned out to be an atheist Dutch girl. Just from hearing the pronunciation of a name, I could accurately guess the gender, race, and religion of an unknown person.

With this in mind, several psychologists have looked at how pronunciation can indicate certain assumptions. Two in particular, Michael Slepian and Adam Galinsky, have come to a conclusion based on eleven studies of over 270 million names: “We propose that vocal cord vibration during the pronunciation of an initial phoneme plays a critical role in explaining which names are assigned to males versus females. This produces a voiced gendered name effect, whereby voiced phonemes (vibration of the vocal cords) are more associated with male names, and unvoiced phonemes (no vibration of the vocal cords) are more associated with female names.” A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that influences pronunciation. For example, the phoneme /k/ is in cat, catch, and kit. Depending on whether there is vibration in the vocal cords, phonemes can be voiced or unvoiced. To see the difference, put a finger on your voice box and say the phoneme. If your voice box vibrates, the phoneme is voiced. If not, the phoneme is unvoiced. Slepian and Galinsky focused on whether the initial phoneme in a name had a gender effect. They argued that if the initial phoneme is voiced, then the name has a harsh sound and therefore a male connotation, while unvoiced phonemes have a softer sound and a female connotation. It’s a stereotypical assumption and sadly true for the majority of names.

            Names have also evolved around race and religion. Each culture will have popular names that can distinguish where one comes from and what one believes in. For example, a “Mary” would be an English Christian and a “Romeo” would be an Italian. Furthermore, people associate personality traits to a name. A website dedicated to baby names has found out that “when asked to stereotype names by age, trustworthiness, attractiveness, sociability, kindness, aggressiveness, popularity, masculinity/femininity, degree of activity or passivity, etc., people actually do tend to agree on each name's characteristics.” One of my favourite examples is the name “Damien.” The TV show Only Fools and Horses stars two brothers; Del-boy, who has a son named Damien, and Rodney. Damien is only a baby, yet Rodney is afraid of being in the room with him. Why? Because the anti-Christ was named “Damien” in The Omen. Rodney was only scared of Damien because of the connotation connected to the name. The same type of psychology can be applied to many names.

            Connotations, stereotypes, and labels are all effects of names. Thinking of this, names seem quite the hindrance; a person can form an opinion of you even before they meet you. However, this is not the view people take on names. In his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, the lecturer Dale Carnegie explains, “...the average person is more interested in his or her own name than in all the other names on earth put together. Remember that name and call it easily, and you have paid a subtle and very effective compliment. But forget it or misspell it- and you have placed yourself at a sharp disadvantage.” Basically, a name is honey to the person who owns it. Carnegie also remarks that “we should be aware of the magic contained in a name and realize that this single item is wholly and completely owned by the person with whom we are dealing... and nobody else” (Carnegie 112). This goes some way to explain people’s view on names. We use names to talk about a specific person. A name identifies a person and marks him or her as an individual and we all like to be individuals.

            It is in my humble opinion that a name can hold a very great power. They create first impressions and symbolise individuality. They are more than just a few letters assembled together.