What's in a name?

A few years ago, a novel was published in France under the name, The Revenge of Kevin. It told of a young man, unsurprisingly named Kevin, who decides to take revenge on all of those French intellectuals who looked down on him, condemned him to never be their equal, merely on the basis that he is called Kevin.

Names are a funny business. We all, whether we like it or not, have a preconception of someone based on their names. We think we know what a Sandra, or a Becky, or a Thomas, or even a Kevin, will be like well before we meet them. This is why so many actors take stage names. Sometimes, it’s for legal reasons, such as Michael Keaton changing his name to avoid collisions with the already famous Michael Douglas, or Albert Brooks, the voice of Marlin in Finding Nemo, changing his name from Albert Einstein to avoid collisions with… I’m sure you can work it out.

Sometimes, though, it really is just about the sound of it. Cary Grant was famously born Archibald Leach, a name so un-Hollywood that John Cleese used it for his hilariously prissy lawyer in a Fish Called Wanda, whereas the idea of John Wayne as Marion Morrison is about as believable as Bruce Willis, a man who can make even going bald macho, being christened Walter.

Is it reasonable for us to have this reaction, though? Fair enough for those people who change their names because of other people's reactions to it. Anne Rice, author of Interview with the Vampire, changed her name on her very first day at school, merely because she suspected she would be teased if she told people her real name was Howard. But does the name we are given actually shape us? If we believe that Kevins will be boring, or Chanteles airheaded and obsessed with shoes, is it because of stereotypes and prejudices or is it because they actually are? Obviously, we can exclude the distinctions between someone choosing to call themselves Bill, William or Willy, and as for Richards who decided to call themselves Dick… If your name is given to you, though, with little choice for embellishment or variation, can we really judge your personality based on a decision your parents made before you were born? Well, there’s two sides to this argument. The first says the personality is shaped, not by your name, but by others reaction to your name. Thus, if people approach you expecting you to be cheerful and enthusiastic just because your name is Sunny, then maybe that’s the way you’ll start behaving simply because it gets a better reaction. Similarly, if people assume you be dour and pessimistic just because your name is Jarvis, maybe you’ll give up on optimism and focus on cynicism because it makes people laugh.

The second argument simply says don’t be so stupid – if we find truth in nominative determinism, it’s merely because we’re looking for it. For every Sara Blizzard who ends up being a weather girl, or Les McBurney who ends up being a firefighter, there are thousands of Bakers, Smiths, Archers and Goodmans who end up doing something utterly unrelated. The stereotype associated with a name changes anyway. As this fun age estimator shows, it is possible to estimate someone’s age quite accurately by their name. Thus when we hear of someone called Mabel or Mildred, we think of someone old, frail and set in their ways. What about Millicent or Milly though. Stick those into the calculator and you’ll see two peaks – one in the 1920’s and one rising right now. Does that mean that all of these newly christened Millys will be frail and unable to look after themselves? Well, initially yes. But not for long, and soon we’ll find ourselves coming up with a new stereotype to match the personality of the first millennial Millicent to rise to international fame.

So, for everyone blessed with a stereotypically uninspiring name, take heart in the fact that you have at least one namesake out there who will break the mold. Dull but reliable Keiths, look to Keith Richards, homely and etiquette-obsessed Sandras look to Sandra Bullock, and overly confident Dans who work in sales look to Daniel Radcliffe or Daniel Defoe.

And as for Kevins, such as Kevin Spacey, Kevin Young, Kevin Greenaugh and Kevin Xu I leave the last word to La Revanche de Kevin.

A Kevin can not, has no right to be an intellectual. He can be a gym instructor, a printer salesman, a supermarket manager, but intellectual - impossible.