Could your name determine how you look and behave?

The curse of the J name 

As a girliepop who’s dated her fair share of J-named jerks and lived to tell the tale (just), when a new study crossed my desk proving for once and for all that your name does influence your appearance as you age, I felt seen. Because lemme tell you, I have a type, and looking at my tally of Jakes, James’, Jamies, Jordans, Jesses and Jacks, they’ve all got a lot in common. And if you’ve ever had the joy of dating a J, then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

When scientists at Princeton University (which you just know has a load of jocks named Josh) posed the question, ‘Can names shape facial appearance?’, all they had to do was ask the single women. But in the name of *science* they launched an actual study into the ‘face-name effect’ – the idea that a person's face gradually changes as they age to reflect their given name.

“This study investigates the possibility of a self-fulfilling prophecy effect wherein individuals’ facial appearance develops over time to resemble the social stereotypes associated with given names,” researchers write. They suggest that these stereotypes carry social meanings and expectations and can influence how a person behaves, “eventually enabling a shared representation regarding what the ‘right name’ most likely is for a specific face”. 

In other words, do all babies called James grow up to be adult f**k boys? And can we spot them in one swipe? Yes, according to the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

“As years go by, people internalise the characteristics and expectations associated with their name and embrace them, consciously or unconsciously, in their identity and choices,” say the authors. “Facial appearance may be affected by this process directly, as when a person chooses specific features according to these expectations, like hairstyles, glasses or make-up, or indirectly via other behaviours that affect one’s facial appearance, like facial expressions.” 

To examine the self-fulfilling prophecy hypothesis, scientists carried out five studies that combined human perception tests with machine learning techniques. They found that people were able to match names to real adult faces with an accuracy of 28 per cent, significantly above chance. However when faces were artificially aged, their accuracy dropped to 24 per cent, which wasn’t significantly different from chance.

So, with research confirming that a newborn named Jack is very likely to develop into a man that just looks like a Jack, and apparently someone I would very much date, I headed straight to a psychologist for their thoughts (while I was left questioning my life choices in men).

What do you make of this new research? 

“It’s fascinating,” Rachel Tomlinson, a Perth-based psychologist, tells Body+Soul, “but also something that many of us have instinctively or subconsciously experienced.” Take for example, how some people pick a baby name before birth but then the bub is born and the name “somehow feels wrong” so they chose an alternative that fits better. 

“But what's most interesting to me personally is to consider how our own internal expectations and assumptions of what a name means might actually be subconsciously influencing not only how we style ourselves, with hair cuts, hair colour and makeup, but also that our eyes and mouths in particular are elements that are similar across people of the same name,” Tomlinson says. (If you’re picturing a Jamies’ floppy locks right now, welcome to my boat). 

“Meaning it's likely that we move our faces in similar ways so end up with the same kinds of wrinkles or musculature in our faces. So it might mean that we, as people of the same name, are conditioned to respond to the world in a particular way, like are we smiley and engaging, or grumpy and surly?”

You might want to think twice before naming your bub. Image: iStock

What does this mean for us? 

Apart from encouraging me to date someone who is not my type (back up Jordans), this research could help people learn more about what makes them tick, and then maybe do things differently.

“It's important to understand the way that our mind works, in particular how we make subconscious decisions based on our assumptions and biases,” Tomlinson explains. “This kind of knowledge could give people additional insights into their own life choices or expectations they have of themselves.”

And when I’ve finally met a non-J named man and am ready to have kids, maybe I’ll be thinking twice about what to call them. “The research may even impact people's choices when it comes to naming their children,” the psychologist says, “depending on the kind of influence they are hoping their child will have on the world around them or how they hope people will perceive or think about their child.”

Originally published as Could your name determine how you look and behave?