Marge: You changed your name without consulting me?
Homer: That's the way Max Power is, Marge. Decisive.
--The Simpsons
In honor of Will Powers and his theories about self-control, today I would like to talk about my favorite bias ever, the name letter effect. The name letter effect doesn't cause global existential risk or stock market crashes, and it's pretty far down on the list of things to compensate for. But it's a good example of just how insidious biases can be and of the egoism that permeates every level of the mind.
The name letter effect is your subconscious preference for things that sound like your own name. This might be expected to mostly apply to small choices like product brand names, but it's been observed in choices of spouse, city of residence, and even career. Some evidence comes from Pelham et al's Why Susie Sells Seashells By The Seashore:
The paper's first few studies investigate the relationship between a person's name and where they live. People named Phil were found more frequently than usual in Philadelphia, people named Jack in Jacksonville, people named George in Georgia, and so on with p < .001. To eliminate the possibility of the familiarity effect causing parents to subconsciously name their children after their place of residence, further studies were done with surnames and with people who moved later in life, both with the same results. The results held across US and Canadian city names as well as US state names, and were significant both for first name and surname.
In case that wasn't implausible enough, the researchers also looked at association between birth date and city of residence: that is, were people born on 2/02 more likely to live in the town of Two Harbors, and 3/03 babies more likely to live in Three Forks? With p = .003, yes, they are.
The researchers then moved on to career choices. They combed the records of the American Dental Association and the American Bar association looking for people named either Dennis, Denice, Dena, Denver, et cetera, or Lawrence, Larry, Laura, Lauren, et cetera. That is: were there more dentists named Dennis and lawyers named Lawrence than vice versa? Of the various statistical analyses they performed, most said yes, some at < .001 level. Other studies determined that there was a suspicious surplus of geologists named Geoffrey, and that hardware store owners were more likely to have names starting with 'H' compared to roofing store owners, who were more likely to have names starting with 'R'.
Some other miscellaneous findings: people are more likely to donate to Presidential candidates whose names begin with the same letter as their own, people are more likely to marry spouses whose names begin with the same letter as their own, that women are more likely to show name preference effects than men (but why?), and that batters with names beginning in 'K' are more likely than others to strike out (strikeouts being symbolized by a 'K' on the records).
If you have any doubts about the validity of the research, I urge you to read the linked paper. It's a great example of researchers who go above and beyond the call of duty to eliminate as many confounders as possible.
The name letter effect is a great addition to any list of psychological curiosities, but it does have some more solid applications. I often use it as my first example when I'm introducing the idea of subconscious biases to people, because it's clear, surprising, and has major real-world effects. It also tends to shut up people who don't believe there are subconscious influences on decision-making, and who are always willing to find some excuse for why a supposed "bias" could actually be an example of legitimate decision-making.
And it introduces the concept of implicit egoism, the tendency to prefer something just because it's associated with you. It's one possible explanation for the endowment effect, and if it applies to my beliefs as strongly as to my personal details or my property, it's yet another mechanism by which opinions become calcified.
This is also an interesting window onto the complex and important world of self-esteem. Jones, Pelham et al suggest that the name preference effect is either involved in or a byproduct of some sort of self-esteem regulatory system. They find that name preferences are most common among high self-esteem people who have just experienced threats to their self-esteem, almost as if it is a reactive way of saying "No, you really are that great." I think an examination of how different biases interact with self-esteem would be a profitable direction for future research.
To justify putting a child at increased risk of being teased or bullied, the reason had better be pretty damn good. I don't see the parents' name preferences, or the desire to flout prejudice with a child's name, as cutting it. Let's start with the issue of parents' preferences:
I fully agree that names are important to parents and that parents have a valid interest in choosing names for their children that they like.
Yet we can't just look at the parents' interests. What about the kid's interests? Remember, we are talking about potentially lasting psychological trauma. Even if we are only talking about a 5-10% difference in teasing and bullying, why would a parent want to make things any worse for their children just to satisfy their own creativity and self-expression? That sounds very selfish on the parent's part.
Btw, I don't see a problem with the name "Cimorene." I'm pretty sure I haven't argued for limiting childrens' names to the most generic, like "Lisa." As I've said, I'm not advocating against cool names or unusual names, I'm advocating against names with associations and permutations that lead to increased teasing. As you observe, it is possible make fun of any name, given enough thought; yet as I've also already pointed out, some names are easier to make fun of than others. Not all names are so vulnerable to teasing that we should just throw up our hands and treat them all as equally risky for children.
If parents really want to exercise their creativity, they should think up cool names that don't have obviously teaseable associations. Cimorene is fine; Vanyel is not. Would it really hurt parents to call their son "Vance" instead of "Vanyel" as much as it could potentially hurt the kid to be called Vanyel if one of his classmates discovers the reference? Remember, we are talking about the receiving homophobic slurs for years on end, which might have otherwise been avoided. From a utilitarian perspective, I don't think the math adds up. Maybe you think it does.
Next, let's examine the issue of conformity:
Conforming when choosing a name isn't the same thing as "encouraging" or "enforcing" conformity. Unless you think that it encourages conformity by example?
I generally don't support catering to conformity and prejudice, in a vacuum. Yet in this case, we have an additional concern: the child's welfare. Does the cost the parents bear by conforming (or to others who might follow their example) really justify putting their child at an elevated risk of psychological harm? If the point is to avoid teaching the child to conform, then can't the parents teach this lesson more directly?
Certainly the choice of a child's name isn't the "best" way of protecting a child from bullying; nobody is saying that it is. But it certainly helps. Choice of a child's name isn't the best way to fight conformity and prejudice, either. Parents shouldn't be sticking their children any farther out in the front lines of culture wars than necessary. If parents want to fight prejudice and teach their kids the virtues of opposing it, then they should take the kids to rallies. Parents can use kids to hold placards, but parents shouldn't use a kid's name as a placard.
You suggest other ways of protecting children. Great idea in principle, but homeschooling is the only idea you've suggested that I think will work in practice.
When I read this, I really have to wonder whether you've experienced any kind of extensive bullying. I could be wrong, but it doesn't sound like you know the ropes.
There is a limit to what the authorities can and will do. Authorities can verbally rebuke bullies or talk to their parents, but this is not guaranteed to result in a change lasting more than a few days/weeks. Authorities can't supervise everything all the time. There is plenty of psychological damage that bullies can do with chronic maltreament even if no isolated incident is enough to get them suspended or expelled. Verbal abuse especially is hard to monitor and discipline.
You can't assume that the child will necessarily speak up about everything. If the child is used to the way they are being treated, they might not realize that they deserve better.
As for the physical side, there is only so much that martial arts can do when there is big differences in size and aggressiveness between children. Jujitsu might help with grappling, but it's not so good against shoving and tripping, especially when they come from behind or in groups. A gentle kid who is not a natural athlete is going to get owned by bigger, aggressive bullies who hit puberty earlier, regardless of training. Furthermore, what if the kid doesn't want to do martial arts?
The only thing I've seen make serious bullies completely stop is (a) the bully getting older and maturing, or (b) the bully finding a juicier target. Probably the best way to protect a kid is to make sure he or she doesn't get targeted in the first place; consequently, picking a name that won't instead draw the radar of every bully in the school seems like a good idea. Because once the kid gets in the sights of serious and savvy bullies, there is not much that you or the authorities can do to completely stop the bullies from having their fun and slowly sucking the life out of your kid, every day, for years on end, short of waiting for the bullies to get tired of your kid, or taking your kid out of that situation.
I see, but I don't think your value ordering is based on the big picture taking into account the nature of bullying, perhaps because you don't have extensive experience with it (though maybe you do). I completely agree with valuing parents' name preferences and avoiding caving in to conformity, but I don't see a basis to believe that these concerns justify making one's child a bigger target for bullies. Sure, the kid could grow up and love their name and never get seriously bullied, but he or she could also get targeted by bullies early and get hit harder. Even if this higher variance of outcome from a radical name is not associated with a lower mean (it probably is), parents should be risk-averse towards outcome distributions that extend into the range of lasting psychological and social damage.
Parents conforming to prejudice and stowing their creative, radical, avante garde names for their children just doesn't hurt them, society, nor their children as much as increased bullying and teasing could hurt the children. I don't see the utilitarian math working out, unless the parents' name preferences are put above the children's welfare, the danger of bullying is underestimated, the differences in fertility to bullies of different names is underestimated, or the ability of children, parents and authorities to deal with bullying is overestimated.
And it bears repeating again: I am not against all cool, unusual, or even avant-garde names. I am not merely advocating generic names. I am arguing against names that will put children at an increased risk of being bullied or otherwise mistreated or not taken seriously.
I would revise this statement if I were you, to something like "to justify putting a child at increased risk of being teased or bullied, the reason had better be commensurate with the risk increase in question". For example, "I was in a hurry" isn't a "pretty damn good" reason to increase the odds of teasing/bullying for one's child, but it might - occasionally, anyway - be an adequate reason for not noticing ... (read more)