That the name maketh the the man (woman) or not?

[FiveFarthings]

I recently read an article about an American woman called Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck who has just got her PhD and is now Dr Marijuana (she is a Dr in higher education leadership). She said that she’s never let her name define her and refused to change it as it was part of her identity.

I think she made a valid point regarding name and identity and I was wondering what everyone else thought? Does your name have an impact on how you are viewed/treated by society? Are people more accepting of more unique, less mainstream names now days, or do you think that employers/clients etc would discriminate/be biased towards someone with a unique name? For example, seeing the name ‘Twinkle’ on a CV and writing them off immediately based on assumptions based on their name (I genuinely have a friend called Twinkle and this happened to her when she was younger. She’s in her 50s now and goes by her middle name of Caroline)

Do you have a unique name that you love or do your wish your parents had called you something else? Do you have a ‘normal’ name but wished you had something a bit different? (For example my first name is Sarah but my mother wanted to give me the middle name Aurora which was vetoed by my dad. Shame because I probably would have called myself Aurora instead of Sarah because I think Sarah is boring. No offense to other Sarah’s out there!)

What people call their kids is no business of mine as it doesn’t affect me in any way (as I am sure some MNers will point out!) and I’m not asking people to start judging people’s baby name choices, I was just interested in what people thought society was like as a whole on the subject of different/unique names off the back of the article.

I think society is hugely discriminative, as your friend Twinkle discovered. I therefore chose names that were timeless and hopefully had a bit of gravitas so that my dc wouldn't face that superficial prejudice. They can express their individuality in other ways

I do think parents should chose names what wouldn't be out of place in a boardroom.

I like the current trend for reviving old or unusual names like many found on the baby name board but if you like something more off the wall it should be nickname territory.

I do think girls get the worse end of the stick here; with names like Twinkle or Petal they'll always struggle to get taken seriously.

Yes, unfortunately, there's a lot of prejudice involved. Naming your child something "establishmenty" will always be more appealing to those with a plausible claim to be a member of the "establishment", broadly defined. If you're at all an "outsider" socially or victimised by mainstream society, you're less likely to want to give your child a name that makes them sound like that mainstream (see African-American parents in the USA not wanting to give their children names that come from a slave-owning society). I also think that if you are more socially advantaged, then you can have the confidence to give your child a fairly nondescript name and feel assured that they will be able to develop their own individuality and assert themselves in other ways. Whereas if you're less confident about this, you might want to give the child a unique name as a way of expressing how unique and special they are to you.

Depends on the social circles you're in. Inventing a new name seems much more common in some other countries than in the UK, although we aren't as prescriptive as those countries with allowed name lists.

To get a PhD, Dr Marijuana is clearly highly intelligent and determined (part of me wonders whether the determination comes from a 'Boy Named Sue' kind of situation). I think with names that unconventional it will kind of 'sink or swim' the child.

I've met some people with unique spellings of classic names. I didn't judge them, but I did wonder what the eff their parents thought they were going to achieve. Some of them liked their spellings, most have said (not that I asked them) that having a non-standard spelling was a pain in the arse.

"I do think parents should chose names what wouldn't be out of place in a boardroom."

So white/christian in origin and preferably male?

I do think that you should think about the name you give your child, but not were it requires you to give up your heritage, family associations etc and also personal preferences.

My children have less used names and I've had negative comments on two of them. As Adults they all like their names and that there's no one else with the same name in anywhere they've worked and only a few in the whole school.

It definitely has an impact. I don't understand why parents insist of giving their DC yooneek names.

My first name is unusual in the UK, it's French, and I have an English surname.

Something along the lines of Francoise Robertson (but not that).

Everyone knows how to pronounce it, no-one ever has the same name, and it definitely isn't boring!

Never choose a name you wouldn't want to see as Prime Minister! If you call a baby Twinkle you're mad!

There might be people with weird and wonderful names who have still achieved success professionally and academically, but it will have been harder for them. They will constantly be working against stereotypes and classism where someone called Sarah or George will have a more straightforward time.

Of course it isn’t right that snobbishness and preconceptions based on names have such an impact on an individual accessing different opportunities, but life is unfair and unfortunately this isn’t going to change any time soon.

You can be successful with any name, but names can carry a layer of preconception that has to be overcome.

When you name a baby, you don't know their personality and how well they will carry an unusual name, particularly one that is difficult to spell and pronounce. I mean youneek names, not a range of cultures or off-trend. Saying that some old British names would probably raise eyebrows, the Victorians had interesting taste!

It's surprisingly difficult to know where names will fit as fashions suddenly shift, and a name suddenly becomes popular or gains awkward connetations.

Girls probably do have a disadvantage if a name is percieved as being little girly and frivolous, as it can be harder for women to establish themselves seriously anyway. If you're trying to have a serious conversation with a stranger on the phone, introducing yourself as Twinkle is not going to put gravitas on your side!

Why isn't she Dr Vandyck?

Isn't that the correct way of Dr's are named? Dr Surname?

I do think there’s such a thing as nominative determinism. You never meet a slutty Mavis, do you? Or an international man of mystery called Keith.

My actual name is a popular short version of a longer name. So for example Alex and Alexandria. My parents reasoning was that everyone will just shorten it any way. Normally this is fine and doesn't really bother me but sometimes in formal or professional settings (Cv's, presentations at work etc) I will use the long version as I think that the short version comes across as less formal and a bit matey.

You never meet a slutty Mavis, do you? Or an international man of mystery called Keith.

How do you know? Maybe Mavis is very disceet with her conquests, and Keith is the ultimate in forgettable names, so would probably make an excellent spy

Still Coughing I think Lord Adonis is a strong counter-argument against nominative determinism

Having asked about our suggested names for my expectant twins I'd say we're still very much judgemental about names, even if it's more a judgement at the parents and then more of a "what kind of child would thry have raised" reflection on the child iyswim

I do think parents should chose names what wouldn't be out of place in a boardroom
Which boardroom though?
Names that are perfectly normal in other countries have been deemed 'chav' on MN in the U.K. However over the past few years I have come across adults with supposedly 'un boardroom names' in directors and chief exec positions.
As the years go by these names will be more and more ' normal '

I have worked with senior managers with names like Troy, Precious, Fallon and Wayne. Their careers are going better than mine at the moment!

I think it's foolish to give your child an infantilising, made-up or misspelt name and I don't really understand why so many people think it's so important to give their child a unique or highly unusual name, or indeed why people are so obsessed with finding the 'right' name. It's not as though you can know if a name suits your child's personality when they are a newborn baby!

A name that puts people off before they've even spoken to you is a pain. But once you know someone, their name doesn't really matter at all. Giving someone a unique name doesn't make them a more special person in any way whatsoever. You're no less likely to be successful or interesting if you're called Jane or Jack than if you have some super cool name. I wouldn't have chosen my name tbh, but I don't particularly care that it's not a name I love.

I think Lord Adonis is a strong counter-argument against nominative determinism

"Never pick a name you can't scrub the floor in" - Granny Weatherwax, Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

I had a male/ becoming unisex name (not an American unisex name which might at a pinch have been perceived by teenagers at least as cool, a very uncool unisex name) growing up in a rural area in the 70s and 80s. It got mostly a reaction or a joke about famous male bearers of the name. I ended up mostly mumbling my name and gladly embracing the more ordinary names people misheard, never correcting them. I spent whole summer holidays of 6 days a week summer jobs answering perfectly contentedly to alternative names. I never told my parents due to feeling embarrassed, so my mother frequently tells me how much I loved my name as a child.

I often wish I'd changed it but now I live in a non English speaking country nobody knows it's a male name, and a couple of famous women cropped up with the name since I became an adult, rather than the prominent men when I was a child.

I'm not sure it ever impacted me career wise, I've never had a problem getting jobs, but it impacted my social (rather than career or academic) self esteem and made me feel even more self conscious and awkward meeting new people than I might otherwise have felt between the ages of about 10 and 25, after which I stopped caring.

Now it's meh, don't care, but I'd never burden a child with a unisex or weird name.

Out there names can be sink or swim - some people might succeed despite being called Marijuana, and be stronger for having to defy prejudice, but some people also succeed despite going to sink schools, growing up in poverty, or having a serious health problem and equally might feel overcoming the odds made them stronger - still few parents would deliberately disadvantage their children in any of these ways, following some kind of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" mantra...