Why Your Name Matters

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In 1948, two professors at Harvard University published a study of thirty-three hundred new graduates, looking at whether their names had any bearing on1. have bearing on： 与……有关，对……有影响。their academic performance.The men with unusual names, the study found, were more likely to have flunked out or to have exhibited symptoms of psychological problems than those with more common names.2. flunk out： 〈口〉因学分成绩不及格而被学校除名；exhibit：显示出，表现出；symptom：症状；psychological： 心理上的，精神上的。The Mikes were doing just fine, but the Berriens were having trouble.3. 叫迈克的人表现都很好，但是叫贝里恩的人却遇到了麻烦。A rare name,the professors surmised, had a negative psychological effect on its bearer.4. surmise： 推测，认为；bearer：此处指名字所有者。

Since then, researchers have continued to study the effects of names. Some recent research suggests that names can in fluence choice of profession, where we live, whom we marry, the grades we earn, the stocks we invest in, whether we’re accepted to a school or are hired for a particular job, and the quality of our work in a group setting. Our names can even determine whether we give money to disaster victims: if we share an initial with the name of a hurricane, according to one study, we are far more likely to donate to relief funds after it hits.5. disaster victim： 灾民，灾难受害者；initial： 姓名的首字母缩写；relief fund： 救济金，救助金。

《说文解字》中解释“名”时称：“名自命也”。一直以来，人们或多或少地都会意识到名字对人的性格和成就的影响。虽然东西方取名的习惯和理念有所不同，但是天下父母心，都想为自己的孩子取个好名字，挣个好命运。但同样的，疑问也从未停止过：“天下同名同姓人之多，为什么同样的姓名，人的命运却差千里呢？”名字密码远非如此简单，里面盘根错节地牵扯了历史学、心理学、社会学、经济学……看来，取个好名字不容易啊。

Much of the apparent in fluence of names on behavior has been attributed to what’s known as the implicit-egotism effect:we are generally drawn to the things and people that most resemble us.6. attribute to： 把……归因于，认为是……的结果；implicit-egotism：内隐自我中心理论，认为人们潜意识中会倾向于与自己相关的事物；resemble： 像，与……相似。Because we value and identify with our own names, and initials, the logic goes, we prefer things that have something in common with them. For instance, if I’m choosing between two brands of cars, all things being equal, I’d prefer a Mazda or a Kia.7. all things being equal： 其他条件相同的情况下；Mazda： 马自达汽车，日本汽车品牌；Kia： 起亚汽车，韩国汽车品牌。

That view, however, may not withstand closer scrutiny.8. withstand： 经得起，顶得住；scrutiny：仔细检查，审查。It is argued that the findings are statistical flukes that arise from poor methodology.9. fluke： 侥幸，偶然；methodology： 方法论。For example, it may be appealing10. appealing： 有吸引力的，有感染力的。to think that someone named Dan would prefer to be a doctor, but we have to ask whether there are so many doctor Dans simply because Dan is a common name, well-represented in many professions. If that’s the case, the implicit-egotism effect is no longer valid11. valid： 有效的，正确的。.

There are also researchers who have been more measured12. measured： 慎重的，有分寸的。in their assessments of the link between name and life outcome.In 1984, the psychologist Debra Crisp and her colleagues found that though more common names were better liked, they had no impact on a person’s educational achievement. And while a person’s name may unconsciously in fluence his or her thinking, its effects on decision-making are limited. Followup studies have also questioned the link between names and longevity,career choice and success, geographic and marriage preferences,13. longevity： 长寿，长命； geographic：地理学的，地理分布的。and academic achievement.

However, it does not necessarily mean that name effects don’t exist; perhaps they just need to be reinterpreted. In 2004, the economists Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan created five thousand résumés in response to job ads in Chicago and Boston. They faked groups of what they termed “whitesounding names” (like Emily Walsh and Greg Baker) and“black-sounding names” (like Lakisha Washington and Jamal Jones). They also created two types of candidates:a higher-quality group, with more experience and a more complete pro file,14. candidate： 应试者，候选者；pro file：（对一个人的能力、个性的）简要描述，简介。and a lower-quality group, with some obvious gaps in employment or background. They sent two résumés from each quali fication group to every employer,one with “black-sounding” name and the other with a“white-sounding” one (a total of four CVs per employer).They found that the “white-sounding” candidates received fifty per cent more callbacks, and that the advantage a résumé with a “white-sounding” name had over a résumé with a “black-sounding” name was roughly equivalent to eight more years of work experience.15. 他们发现：“名字听起来像白人”的求职者收到招聘者电话的几率要高出百分之五十，而且拥有“听起来像白人”名字的简历相对于“听起来像黑人”名字的简历要多出八年以上工作经验的优势。roughly： 粗略地，大致上；equivalent： 相同的，相等的。At average, one of every ten “white” résumés received a callback, versus one of every fifteen “black” résumés. Names, in other words, send signals about who we are and where we come from.

The effects of name-signaling—what names say about ethnicity, religion, social sphere, and socioeconomic background—may begin long before someone enters the workforce. In a study of children in a Florida school district,conducted between 1994 and 2001, the economist David Figlio demonstrated that a child’s name in fluenced how he or she was treated by the teacher, and that differential treatment, in turn, translated to16. translate to： 把……转化为。test scores. Children with names that were linked to low socioeconomic status or being black, were met with lower teacher expectations. Unsurprisingly, they then performed more poorly than their counterparts17. counterpart： 地位相同的人，对应方。with nonblack, higher-status names. And children with Asian-sounding names were met with higher expectations, and were more frequently placed in gifted programs.

The economists Steven Levitt and Roland Fryer looked at trends in names given to black children in the United States from the nineteen-seventies to recent days. They discovered that names which sounded more distinctively “black” became, over time, ever more reliable signals of socioeconomic status. That status, in turn, affected a child’s subsequent life outcome, which meant that it was possible to see a correlation between names and outcomes, suggesting a name effect similar to what was observed in the 1948 Harvard study.18. 那种地位，反过来，影响了一个孩子随后的人生成就——意味着名字和成就之间可能还是存在着关联的，这与1948年哈佛大学研究的发现相似。subsequent： 随后的，后来的；correlation： 相互关系，关联。As theysaid, “Names tell us a lot about who you are.”

We see a name, implicitly associate different characteristics with it, and use that association, however unknowingly,to make unrelated judgments about the competence and suitability of its bearer.19. 我们看到一个名字时，会暗自将其与不同的特征联系起来，然后利用（尽管是不自觉地）这种联系对名字持有者的能力和适宜性做出不相干的判断。The relevant question may not be“What’s in a name?” but, rather, “What signals does my name send—and what does it imply?”