Do you think your name helps or hinders you in life?

[BrickPoet]

Hindered in primary due to too many with the same first name

I think the issue is that it’s immediately clear to the customer that I’m not their peer. I don’t understand their problems or share their experiences, so how can I advise them what they need? The upper class customer will trust that Jocasta has good taste and can recommend something suitable for them, but how could someone like Sharon have any clue about what’s suitable? Nobody says this out loud but I honestly think it’s a factor.

@Bluefell , If you're a Sharon, you probably are a peer. I think it's a pretty name. I was surprised to meet one a couple of decades younger than me.

My name is a bit of a fancy one and it looks weird with my siblings' names.
One parent chose the other names and the other chose mine.
We're something like Jason, Tracey, Darren and Esmaralda.

I quite like mine. My surname now is even slightly better than my maiden name, very easy to spell and people get it immediately.

I like my name. It's not 'out there' or odd, but it's rare and doesn't date me.

I read once that having a surname which starts with a letter in the first half of the alphabet is a proven advantage in life!

@Bluefell in the kindest possible way, if you are on the other side of the counter, you aren't the customers' or clients' peer regardless of your name. It's a non issue.

To be fair the most expensive things I've bought are cars, kitchens and the odd painting. Only once in the £100k league.

It helps. It’s an old, classic name. Nobody could judge me negatively or not give me a job based on my name. It was quite popular while I was growing up but I didn’t mind that at all. And you don’t get many children with my name now.

My name dates me - it was common in the sixties and early seventies - think Jackie, Julie, Debbie. It's definitely not posh. I also have a boring surname, but I was too stubborn to change it when it got married.

On the other hand it’s occasionally nice to be anonymous.

I have a fairly standard name for my age, top 5 for my year of birth. I do have a few friends and colleagues with the same name and classmates at school but don’t think it’s hindered me in any way.

Mine definitely dates me. I've grown to dislike it more and more. I may change it at 60 in a few years time.

I don't think my name had helped or hindered me.
My first name dates me as being born in the 1980s.
My surname is very unusual - there are about 5,000 people with my surname in the world, 230-ish people with my surname in England.
There are only two people in the world with my first-name/surname combination.

I'd like to think peoples names don't matter, don't help or hinder but they do. Research shows that employers looks more favourably on "white" names than "Black" names on job applications, for example.
I was once doing job shortlisting with someone. We came to an applicant called Kayleigh and the person I was shortlisting with rolled his eyes and said "Here we go, mega-chav incoming" and absolutely didn't read the application in the same way as he'd read others. It really opened my eyes.

I don't think my name has had any impact on my life. It hasn't helped or hindered me .

@KStockHERO , if you were born in the 80s you are still quite young in a work setting, but once you get in your 50s ageism might be a factor.

If your name is a bit of a date-stamp, subconscious bias might kick in.

I’m not on the other side of a counter. I acquire and sell expensive things. Part of the job is to appear as someone whose taste and recommendations the customer can trust. I’m convinced the really big spenders prefer to do business with people who share their tasteful background, and part of their assumption is (I believe) based on the name of their broker.

@Topseyt123 @Nc1424 and me !. DH had a well known and easy to spell but very infrequently used name in his generation and really resented his mother for what he saw as the vanity of her choice.He is far from a shrinking violet ; very much a top of the class/ captain of the firsts type but still would rather have been named Mark or James or whatever.There is a lot of agonising over names and yet there are so many that would be lovely that there is really no need to saddle your child and later adult offspring with something difficult .

@Bluefell why would I need to trust the taste of a supplier? My taste determines what I spend money on. I might think a friend looks fab or an artist is brilliant but I wouldn’t be influenced by an influencer.

Whilst not in the private jet league, I don't have what I have by following others and there are plenty of skint Aramintas and Ruperts out there. My parents did give me a very posh name though .

You seem to inhabit a curated rather than a genuine world.

I've spent decades disliking my name, it's boring and plain but in its favour, it is definitely not "naff". I've recently started to like it more. I like it's simplicity and the fact that it's very no nonsense and not "frilly".

My friend changed their Eastern European name by deed poll and instantly got a lot more responses for their identical CV.

That said, there's so many bat shit middle class names now I wouldn't worry so much. (I quite like the odd ones too - not being as a harsh as I sound.)

Both. It's classic, but a bit on the frumpy side. I'm basically never seen as someone with a "glamorous and sexy" name. On the other hand, it's standard enough to fit a lot of different roles and personalities, and it's often associated with older, responsible women (about 30 years older than me), so for some occations that's a positive.

I really like my name, my parents chose well for my brother and I.. (born 77 and 79).

Its classic, easy to spell, feminine and popular now for babies too.

Neither really. I have a very common Emma/Laura/Hannah type name and there was at least one other on every class and workplace I've ever been in.

It's not horrible but I've always felt it's a bit boring and not really "me". I have a boring surname to match too, and I DO like the fact it makes me completely ungooglable!

I'd agree with other posters, that it is better to have a name that provides a degree of Google anonymity.

It's strange to think how that would never have been a consideration for my parents as Google did not exist when I was born.

I've been the victim of a stalker who I know looks me up online and I wonder if it would have made a difference to have been called something more anonymous, like Jane Smith.

Hinders, I’m embarrassed especially after seeing it described on here as “grim”.

I love my name; it’s classic, but not overused.

It's strange isn't it? If my parents had been together I would have had a culturally different first and last name. I wonder about how this would have changed my life. Would my CVs have been rejected, would people make assumptions about my level of English comprehension, would I have had a harder time in general? The statistics show that yes, this would be the case. I think 'Magdalena Kubrakov' would lead people to imagine someone different to 'Kat Smith' even though Kat could be short for Katarzyna and Smith could be her stepdad's name, for example.

I also have one of the most common names of the 80s so always loads of me, and i also got addressed by my surname to solve the problem, as it was a cool surname. Then i got married and now have a really boring surname which no one uses.

I made sure to give my kids names outside of the 30 most popular names because of this. While all my friends hve literally named their kids lily, thomas, george, olivia , arthur, ava etc