A Rose By Any Other Name...

Do names matter? I've always been curious about names. I'll Google name meanings, studying the list of popular baby names and because I write bought a baby name book that's not just the meaning of names but what people think when they hear that name.

K and I don't want to have kids yet but I've had a list of baby names going in my head for years. Names float in and out and names I liked at 12 - like Elizabeth - wouldn't make the top 50 now. I gravitate towards names that are unique, not-popular (anything in the top 100 of popular baby names makes me cringe) and slightly old-fashioned (names my great-grandmother and maybe even my grandmother would have loved). I loved Ava for the longest time until Ava cracked the top 10 list and I don't want my future daughter to be Ava X for the rest of her life. I guard my little list with a vengence and am fearful of telling anyone incase they steal my name (ala Rachel in Friends) - I may not need it for ten years but I want it there just in case.

This brings me to my point - I will read any story that talks about names. And today, CNN had a story asking "Does your name shape your destiny?". There are a lot of studies that say yes. One of the studies they cite talks about how babies with names that start with C or D do worse in schools than their A/B named counterparts. You have the question are the teachers just lazy or is little Colin destined to be worse at math or English than say Abigail. Another study found that women named after states (like Virginia for example) are more likely to move to their namesake. Coincidence? And in Freakonomics, the authors discuss naming - everything from what a child's named to the education level of the mother, to lower income and less educated people naming their child after what the middle class children who in turns parents named them after the upper class children.

So does your name mean anything? Lets take a non-scientific quiz of my own design for a second to prove a point... that at least you name will prejudge you. I'll write the name and you say the first thing you think of. You don't have to share. No one will judge but I bet you think of something for each one.

Tiffany
Amber
Floyd
Sandra
Fabio

Ok the last one was a bit of a joke. I doubt there are many baby Fabio's running around but you did get an image - right?

I like names. I thought of something different for each one in my list. Tiffany's parents are wanna-be's they fall into the same category of parents that name their kids Mercedes, Crystal, etc. Maybe at one point some rich person somewhere decided to name their child after a car but now all I can think of is someone whose trying to hard to be cool. Amber is probably a stripper along with her sisters all named after gem stones. Floyd makes me think of an over-weight older gentleman, probably a bit country. And Sandra is probably a middle aged woman.

To further prove my point that you prejudge someone based on their name. In college Bush was president and his two daughters are Barbara and Jenna. I'm sure they're both very nice girls. A friend and I were talking about it one day and he said something to the effect of if given a choice he would always take the blind date with a Jenna because a Barbara sounds like an unattractive librarian. According to him, Jenna sounded like a hot girl who likes to party. The thing is Jenna could be a plain Jane bookworm and Barbara a hot party animal but before they even walk into the door my friend had already decided who they would be.

So I do think that names mean something. I don't know if they shape your destiny. That if you're parents pick a weird name for you that you're destined to be a loser. But I do think people will judge you based on past experience or stereotypes. What do you think?

And if you're curious - here's a link to the top baby names of 2009. Congrats Jacob and Isabella you're parents love Twilight and there will probably be ten of your friends with the same name.