Nominative determinism
These included a book on polar explorations by Daniel Snowman[1] and an article on urology by researchers named Splatt and Weedon.
Since the term appeared, nominative determinism has been an irregularly recurring topic in New Scientist, as readers continue to submit examples.
The idea that people are drawn to professions that fit their name was suggested by the psychologist Carl Jung, citing as an example Sigmund Freud who studied pleasure and whose surname means 'joy'.
One explanation for nominative determinism is implicit egotism, which states that humans have an unconscious preference for things they associate with themselves.
[5][7] In England it was only after the Norman conquest that surnames appear to have been used, with pre-Conquest individual relying on a number of bynames that were not hereditary,[5][8] such as Edmund Ironside.
[10][B] The appropriateness of occupational names has decreased over time, because tradesmen did not always follow their fathers:[4] an early example from the 14th century is "Roger Carpenter the pepperer".
[14] In 1652, William Jenkyn, an English clergyman, argued that first names should be "as a thread tyed about the finger to make us mindful of the errand we came into the world to do for our Master".
[27] Notable authors who frequently used charactonyms as a stylistic technique include Charles Dickens (e.g., Mr. Gradgrind, the tyrannical schoolmaster)[28] and William Shakespeare (e.g., the lost baby Perdita in The Winter's Tale).
[39][40] Nominative determinism, literally "name-driven outcome",[41] is the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work which reflect their names.
A series of events raised the suspicion of its editor, John Hoyland, who wrote in the 5 November issue: We recently came across a new book, Pole Positions—The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet, by Daniel Snowman.
[43] So it was interesting to see Jen Hunt of the University of Manchester stating in the October issue of The Psychologist: "Authors gravitate to the area of research which fits their surname.
[46]The editors of Feedback, John Hoyland and Mike Holderness, subsequently adopted the term 'nominative determinism' as suggested by the reader C. R. Cavonius.
These included the U.S. Navy spokesman put up to answer journalists' questions about the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, one Lieutenant Mike Kafka;[49] authors of the book The Imperial Animal Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox;[50] and the UK Association of Chief Police Officers' spokesman on knife crime, Alfred Hitchcock.
[46][52][21][48] In contributions to other newspapers New Scientist writers have stuck to this definition, with the exception of the editor Roger Highfield in a column in the Evening Standard, in which he included "key attributes of life".
Examples include Andrew Waterhouse, a professor of wine,[66] a would-be doctor, Thomas Edward Kill, who subsequently changed his name to Jirgensohn,[67] and the Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Sin.
He proposed three possible explanations for nominative determinism: one's self-image and self-expectation being internally influenced by one's name; the name acting as a social stimulus, creating expectations in others that are then communicated to the individual; and genetics – attributes suited to a particular career being passed down the generations alongside the appropriate occupational surname.
[81] Raymond Smeets theorised that if implicit egotism stems from a positive evaluation of the self, then people with low self-esteem would not gravitate towards choices associated with the self, but possibly away from them.
Igor Judge, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, said he has no recollection of anyone commenting on his destined profession when he was a child, adding "I'm absolutely convinced in my case it is entirely coincidental and I can't think of any evidence in my life that suggests otherwise."
James Counsell on the other hand, having chosen a career in law just like his father, his sibling, and two distant relatives, reported having been spurred on to join the bar from an early age and he cannot remember ever wanting to do anything else.
While reports by owners of fitting names are of interest, some scientists, including Michalos and Smeets, have questioned their value in deciding whether nominative determinism is a real effect.
[90] In 2002 Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones analysed various databases containing first names, surnames, occupations, cities and states.
[91] However, in 2011, Uri Simonsohn published a paper in which he criticized Pelham et al. for not considering confounding factors and reported on how the popularity of Dennis and Walter as baby names has varied over the decades.
[92][H] Aware of Simonsohn's critical analyses of their earlier methods, Pelham and Mauricio published a new study in 2015, describing how they now controlled for gender, ethnicity, and education confounds.
[I] In one study they looked at census data and concluded that men disproportionately worked in eleven occupations whose titles matched their surnames, for example, baker, carpenter, and farmer.
[100] As for Casler's third possible explanation for nominative determinism, genetics, researchers Voracek, Rieder, Stieger, and Swami found some evidence for it in 2015.
A similar aptitude for dexterity-related activities among people with the surname Tailor, or equivalent spellings thereof, was found, but it was not statistically significant.
