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pwno comments on What's In A Name? - Less Wrong
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I agree that my theory doesn't explain the first initial bias, but maybe that phenomenon has a completely different cause.
I think the first initial bias has more to do with the fact that we get an orienting response from hearing or reading our name, which causes us to pay extra attention to the message source (our liking of the source would result from our paying more attention to it). I hypothesize that we also get an orienting response from hearing or reading messages that are similar to our names.
Reading the word "Alicorn" might unconsciously grab your attention more than "Olicorn" even though they would sound the same (I think). Generalizing from this example, maybe reading words that simply start with a capital "A" grab your attention more than words starting with other capital letters. Hence, you pay more attention (and therefore like) people/places/things that start with a capital A.
I can't think of a way to pronounce "Olicorn" the way "Alicorn" is pronounced (the first syllable rhymes with "pal" and "shall", not "doll" or "call").
For reference, I had to read that sentence a lot of times to make sense of it, as I pronounce "doll" with the same vowel as "pal" and "shall", and I can't currently imagine a way that I would pronounce "doll" the same as "call". Also, I read "Olicorn" as being likely pronounced the same as "Alicorn" (the O as in Oliver, the A as in Alexander).
May I ask where you are from? I've never heard anyone pronounce "doll" the same as "pal", and if there's one thing I'm fascinated by, it's accents (speaking as someone who has been confounded by his own Canadian raising. About. Not aboot.).
Shelton, CT, USA. I believe my accent is typical of that region of the Naugatuck River Valley, usually referred to as the 'valley drawl'.
I guess you and I have different accents. The A in "Alicorn" (and in "Alexander", too, both instances) is the same one I use in "pal", "shall", "cat", "fan", "rabbi", "lad", "granny", etc. The O in "Oliver" is the same vowel for me as "doll" and "call", which most of the time rhyme (although when I'm trying very carefully to speak distinctly, they start to sound a little different).
This conversation probably shouldn't continue without the use of audio and/or a standard phonetic representation. Suffice it to say that one or both of us talks (and hears) funny.
Ah, thought it would be like "Ali" in "Muhammad Ali".
Nope, it's a short I. Like "unicorn", with the "al" in front instead of the "u".