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WE USUALLY HAVE Chinese food every Wednesday. It’s our weekly night out for dinner. While waiting outside our favorite restaurant for a table, I heard my wife call out, “Hey, Doe, our table is ready.” That’s what my wife calls me. It’s my new name. She used to call me Dodo. Now, she’s shortened it to Doe.
How did this nickname come about? One day, I called myself a dodo for a silly mistake I’d made. That’s all it took for me to have a new name. When I was growing up, my sister and her girlfriends used to call me Denyard and Misha. Even my mother got in the act. She’d sometimes call me Knuckle. My childhood friends called me Denny. Don’t ask me how I got these names. I have no idea, except for the obvious one, Denny.
As you can see, Doe is a lot better than some of the other names I’ve been called. It seems like a lot of folks have nicknames. My brother-in-law sometimes calls my sister Daisy. I don’t know where that came from. Some of my mother’s friends used to call her Maybell instead of her real name, Mabel. I even have a nickname for my wife, but I don’t know how to spell it, so I can’t reveal it to you.
I had a friend in elementary school whose nickname was Happy. I’m not sure how he got that name, either. When we were in high school, I called him Happy one day. He didn’t like it. He wanted to be called Brian. I get it. He wanted to be seen as an adult, not a child. Many years later, on social media, some of his friends were calling him Happy. He didn’t seem to mind. At that point, he probably liked it because he saw it as an act of kindness.
I’m like Happy. I don’t mind being called Doe by my wife. I see it as an expression of her fondness. But what if my wife and I were much younger and starting a family, we had a baby boy and we named him Doe. How would that affect his life? Would he be bullied in school for having an unusual name? Would that uncommon name affect his earnings potential because he might not be taken seriously at work?
There’s research that shows that what you name your children could have some impact on their success or failure, because it can influence how people see them. Here are four ways your name could affect your livelihood:
1. Easier-to-pronounce names. A Journal of Experimental Social Psychology study found that people had a more favorable impression of individuals who had easier-to-pronounce names than of those with difficult-to-pronounce names. The findings were independent of name length, unusualness and foreignness.
One explanation is that we tend to favor information that’s easier to comprehend. A University of California, Irvine, study also found that people with easy-to-pronounce names were viewed as more trustworthy. Meanwhile, a New York University study found that individuals who had easier-to-pronounce names often held higher positions at law firms.
2. Shorter names. In 2011, LinkedIn reviewed more than 100 million user profiles to find which names were common among CEOs. They found shorter names were the most common, such as Peter, Bob and Jack for men. It was speculated that men sometimes shorten their name to project a sense of friendliness and openness. By contrast, women used their full name, such as Deborah, Cynthia and Carolyn, to look more professional.
3. Common names. A Marquette University study suggested that common names were better liked and that such folks were more likely to be hired, while unusual names, like Doe, were less liked and these job applicants were least likely to be hired. This could be good news if you’re looking for work—and your name is James, Mary, Robert, Patricia, John or Jennifer.
4. Middle initials. Research from the European Journal of Social Psychology found folks who used their middle initial prompted others to have a more positive perception of their intellectual capacity, performance and status. Some psychologists believe it’s because initials are associated with top professions, like law and medicine. Doctors, lawyers and scientists often use their middle initial.
I’d like to think that if my wife and I had a son, we’d have named him Sam, after my father. Although I don’t put too much stock in the above studies, Sam is short and easy to pronounce. More important, it sounds like someone who is hard working and blue collar, like my father was. Unfortunately, you don’t hear that name very often anymore. The last time I heard the name Sam, it was when my neighbor was calling his dog.
Dennis Friedman retired from Boeing Satellite Systems after a 30-year career in manufacturing. Born in Ohio, Dennis is a California transplant with a bachelor’s degree in history and an MBA. A self-described “humble investor,” he likes reading historical novels and about personal finance. Check out his earlier articles and follow him on Twitter @DMFrie.
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This does make sense to me as a off beat name may give a negative impression. I worked with a man from Cambodia with the name Sau…. pronounced Sue. Hmmm perhaps John Cash was pretty big over there!
My own son is named Juston Clay…. JC for short and he is an executive in a large company. He didn’t even finish high school!
But the topper name, is from a nice lady at my church who when we swapped names, got all giggly and smiles. Because I tell folks I was named after a movie star….My name is Donny. NO, not Osmond as he’s way young, but….DUCK.
Well, she had a job where a high up there in rank individual was . . named. . . for . . real:
Donald J. Duck.
I just wonder about his childhood!
My grandfather was Samuel, like both his father and grandfather. They had different middle names, my grandfather’s was Eugene. My grandmother always called him Gene, but I don’t recall anyone else using the name. He always signed his name as S.E. Coleman.
I also have an interchangeable first and last name. Many people call me Ryan Curtis, I suppose it sounds better or correct to them. Wikipedia says Ryan became a popular name in the 1970s due to Ryan O’Neal starring in Love Story. Now I just use Ryan when asked my first name at Starbucks, it’s just easier.
People have asked me what my middle name is? I have told them Nimin and they want to know about such an unusual name. I inform them the US Navy gave it to me as it is on my records and dog tags. It appears as NMN for no middle name! LOL.
But… I don’t have a middle name! 😉
My mom told me to just pick one and use it and eventually it will be official. So being who I am I used silly initials like ‘Q’ or ‘Z’ and a couple different normal names on forms so now IRS and credit agencies have several AKA listings for me. Just call me ‘Joe Q lastname’
I definitely sympathize with Laura E. Kelly. Going through life with a surname that is also a first name can be a heavy burden that never goes away. When I introduce myself to people, I clearly enunciate my full name “Terry Scott” It’s always a crap shoot, as 50% of the time people assume my first name is Scott. Perhaps 10% of the time, people think I have a compound first name “TerryScott” I long ago got over the annoyance, as life is too short. Now, when I order a coffee or a meal, and the server asks my name for the order, I just say “Scott”. Way too many people mishear “Terry” and when my order is ready, will call out “Harry”, “Hairy” “Larry” or lord knows what else. I follow stand up comic Matteo Lane on Instagram. He has a wonderful routine where he recounts giving the Starbucks barrista his name “Matteo” When his coffee was ready, they called out “Potato” and had written “Potato” on his cup. Some times you just have to roll with the flow. BTW, I recently retired from the federal government, where I was employed by five separate agencies over a 38 year career. In every agency, there were at least two other Terry Scotts (I never thought my name was that common, who knew)? The “decent” Terry Scotts would redirect emails intended for me that ended up in their mailboxes; I imagine there’s a special place in hell for the “bozo” Terry Scotts who deleted the misdirected emails, rather than forward them to me.
Such similar name pain! I always wondered if the Miami newscaster with my name got emails meant for me. I would make sure to forward hers to her, but never got any forwards from her.
Our family name is Hammer. My given first name is Mitchell but most people automatically shorten it to Mitch (I heard the full Mitchell when my mother was angered by or annoyed with me) and many others misread it and called me Michelle. When our son was born we decided to name him Michael. Yes, Mike Hammer but we figured, that most of his contemporaries would have no knowledge of the Mickey Spillane novels, movies, or tv shows about Mike Hammer, Private Eye. We were correct but instead, both of us have listened to nicknames such as Hammerhead, M.C. Hammer, etc.
My teenage nickname was salami.
My wife Barbara, is Barb to all.
When our two daughters were born in the late 80s/early 90s, I wanted to give them names that were clearly feminine (not the gender-neutral names that were becoming fashionable), not too unusual or dated, and not so currently popular that there would be five of them in their kindergarten class.
I think we succeeded, but here’s the irony. My firstborn decided she wanted to be “they,” and adjusted their given first name to make it gender-neutral. My younger daughter still uses she/her pronouns but has also shortened her feminine-sounding name (Melissa) to a nickname (Mel). She doesn’t especially want to make a gender statement—she just likes the shortened version better.
Times have changed in ways I couldn’t envision in 1989 and 1994. Ah, well.
Another point.
Being known by your middle name can be a life-long source of confusion and annoyance. The Western world goes around in the form of first name, middle initial. Going by first initial, middle name, last name may sound a little impressive, more likely, pompous and ridiculous, but at many points in life it’s guaranteed to be a pain. Want to really cause your kids some major and needless distractions? When he or she is small, get him/her a social security number using only middle and last name. DAMHIK.
Bottom line: When naming kids, if you want to be kind to them, make the name you’ll call them by the first name, not the middle name.
The Navy has a tradition of assigning Call Signs as nicknames to pilots and naval flight officers. Think Maverick in Top Gun. Periodically, the service has conducted “scrubs” of these names to weed out ones that may be offensive to some. For instance, one guy had his call sign changed from Sex to Ex. My brother’s call sign was Kid because he was still getting carded at age 26. Little did the server know he could land an F-18 on the back of a aircraft carrier at night. But one of my favorite calls signs belonged to one of my son’s instructors in Navy flight training. His call sign was “Squiffy”. Jonathan is probably familiar with this British term which means: slightly drunk as in, “He’s squiffy from the rum”.
I have a short name, and I like that it connotes my family heritage. When I got married, it never even crossed my mind to change my name. Even so, there have been some issues.
When I was in high school I thought my gym teacher hated me. When he would bark out kids’ names in class, I was the only girl he called by her last name. Towards the end of the year, he said to me in wonder, “Your name is Laura? Why didn’t you tell me?” This was before Kelly was a common first name for both girls and boys, and it had never occurred to me that my last name was also a plausible first name. But that was far from the last time I was called Kelly—for instance, every cheery telemarketer does it (which, to me, has the opposite effect of sounding friendly).
When I went into the working world, I smiled when everyone called me Laurakelly, running it together like it was one name. Later, with the advent of social media I had to be creative with my gmail and yahoo and even website handles since my real name was long taken by the time I signed up. Along the way, I also found out how many other women were named Laura Kelly—including a popular newscaster in Miami (whose misdirected emails I used to get) and now even a governor of Kansas.
I have long used my middle initial (E for Elizabeth) to help distinguish me a bit from all the other Laura Kellys. Now I’m glad to learn from “Denny’s” post that the E has the added bonus of making me seem more intellectual! (-:
My firstborn is named Laura Elizabeth. I thought it was a beautiful name, but it also had some literary roots. I was (and still am) a huge fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, so I named my first daughter after her. My second daughter is Melissa Anne, and people assume we picked “Melissa” because of Melissa Gilbert in the TV series about the Ingalls family. But the literary connection there was to Anne of Green Gables, famously “Anne with an E.”
My given first name is Jeffrey. When I was 10 years old my family moved from the northeast to Burlington, NC, primarily known as a textile/mill town. That was when I discovered that Jeffrey was often pronounced, to my adolescent exasperation, with four syllables (jay-eff-er-ry). Although my Mother loved the name Jeffrey, she gave in to my request to be simply Jeff. Even then, it was sometimes a two syllable name. NC is more urban, at least in some areas, so Jeff is a one syllable word again.
Your name can profoundly affect your sense of self and even your profession. I saw a story about a girl named Sue Yoo. Naturally, people would tease her about becoming a lawyer one day…and sure enough she did. She confessed that she would likely not have gone to law school if it weren’t for her name.
On the other hand, there was a bizarre case of a social scientist who ran an experiment with his kids named “Winner” and “Loser.” Unfortunately for Winner he became a loser, and Loser was successful. You never know, I guess.
I’m grateful to my parents for my name which I’ve always loved.
I have friends with the nicknames, “fish”, “horse” ,”shiner”, “nose”, and I am one of the few whom know their real names.
I’ve known a Cheese, Beans, Beef, Chicken, Bistro, Krusty, among others. Guys are weird.
Gender neutral names could be added to the list, too. Sadly, I suspect that they still help women in getting to the first round of interviews in a job search.
My name is Richard D. Quinn III, but when I was little everyone called me Dickie which I didn’t much appreciate.
My grandfather was called Dick, my father Rich and Richard D Quinn IV is called Rick and I’m back to Dick again. When I place an order and they ask for a name, I just say Quinn, that could be first or last.
I can’t recall the last time my wife and I used our names, except in public with others. Usually it just “Hon” and that’s nondenominational 😎
On a serious note, the impression created by a name before meeting a person can be powerful, often negative, especially when it appears the alphabet was used as a game of pickup sticks. Unfair, but true.
My grandfather, father, brother, and cousin are all Francisco, for which the nickname is Pancho. My abuelo got Pancho, my dad Panchito, my brother Panchitin, and cousin Paco. After my abuelo died, my dad inherited “Pancho,” and a nice condominium.
My paternal grandfather — whose real name was Horace — was known as Clem, and then as Big Clem when my cousin Clement came along, who — despite being considerably taller than my grandfather — was known as Little Clem. Some folks also called my father Clem, and now that’s the name that my grandson calls me.
I agree with the seriousness of your last paragraph. Some parents do a life-altering disservice to their children by the name they give.
I’ve always been known by Ed. Sometimes I’m called Edmund by a friend in a faux formal address. A nickname has never stuck to me. Some have tried to tag me with Eddie, but it never caught on. One exception—an older family friend gave me a nickname that was used by most of his large family and network of friends. We were all christened with a new moniker by him.