How Names Affect Our Personalities

Your name is something so yours, yet seldom used by you. But, it is important to you and the people around, as your name is your identity. Everyone calls you by your name. It is tightly linked to you. Interestingly, your name is something devised by someone else, although you have to live with it throughout life. Does your name affect your personality?

Researchers have found an unusual association between the name of a person and his/her personality. People with names starting or ending with the same letter are believed to have a similar nature. At times, people with same names are seen to have similar personalities.

Some believe that there are some attributes associated with every letter of the alphabet. They believe that the personality of an individual is a combination of the traits linked with each letter in the spelling of his/her name.

Certain researches have established a relationship between one's name and physical or psychological disease he/she may have. There have been cases where the meaning or pronunciation of a person's name was similar to the ailment he/she had. Names have served as indicators of ailments in such cases. However, these instances may have been coincidences.

The meaning of your name can be relative. A word can mean different in different languages. Names differ across cultures. We often come across people with identical names yet different personalities. An individual's personality is a result of many external and inborn factors. It cannot be a derivative of one's name.

However, the other side is that your name can have a positive or negative impact on you, depending on its meaning. For example, a rare name can make you feel unique. If the meaning of your name is any positive emotion or trait, it can make you associate yourself with it.

For example, if your name means victory or success, you may feel positive because of it. If your name includes any word with a positive connotation, it can make you feel happy. If you share your name with a celebrity or a respected figure, it can have a positive impact on your personality.

Sharing your name with a person you like or admire, will have a similar effect. In the same way, sharing your name with a notorious individual or with someone you dislike, can have a negative impact on you.

If people make fun of your name, or make you feel that they dislike it, it can cause low self-esteem. It's natural for anyone to be possessive about his/her name or feel proud of it. If someone teases you about your name, it's your name that contributes to lowering your confidence levels. This can be taken as the name affecting your personality.

Sometimes, we see a link between the name of a person and his profession, which may be wrongly considered as the name's effect on his personality. This is rather a case of parents' expectations from the child reflecting in his name. Let's take an example. Parents who want their child to be a singer, may give him a name associated with music.

Being raised as a singer and on receiving proper training since childhood, the child may develop a liking for music and be a good singer. Here, the parents' aspirations were reflected in choosing a name, and not that the name affected the child. The name may have had a small role in shaping his personality, but its link with the name is coincident.

Logically, your name being your parents' choice, should reflect their taste, not yours. You do not choose your own name. It is always someone else who does it. Then, how can your name reflect your personality? What do you think?