Your Name Can Influence Your Career Choice
I just saw an article about an interesting study on the correlation between names and career choices. The research, published in Names: A Journal of Onomastics, showed that people with last names like “Doctor” and “Lawyer” were more likely to become doctors and lawyers. This reminds me of a dentist I met once, whose name was Les Plack.
Seeing as my last name is Merzenich… I couldn’t become a “Merzenich” because as far as I know that’s not a job. Still, I do work with my father Mike Merzenich here at Posit Science, so I guess that’s about the closest thing…
My hunch is that an individual person would probably never own up to their last name explicitly affecting their career choice. Yet, studied as a collective group, the trend can be demonstrated. What fascinates me about this study is the implication that our conscious decision-making brains are not completely in control of all of the choices we make–even very important ones, like our careers. I wonder what other major life decisions are being subconsciously influenced, and by which other factors?
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July 13th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
My 1st name is Angela. Does that mean I’m an angel?
July 13th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
It just might! Do you have wings?
August 23rd, 2010 at 3:07 am
i want to go in administrative service. is my name influence for it?