This always happens: A new person will forget your name and then apologize, saying, “You look like a [insert wrong name] to me.” Is this just a polite excuse, or can you actually look like a certain name? A new study says that you may not be who you think you are.
The study asked college students to compare photos of white men and asked them to attach names to the faces, and they found some very common trends. For example, the students associated the name “Bob” with men with round faces, and “Tim” with thinner men. The study also showed that people have a hard time remembering a face that doesn’t fit with a name. That stranger may not be so rude after all.
So what does this mean? Do names come with archetypes? Should we analyze the baby’s facial structure before we consult the Treasury of Baby Names? Or might you look like a name you’ve never even heard of?
It seems like the logical conclusion is that just like everything else, society stereotypes popular names. While it is mildly jolting to be told you don’t look like who you’ve been your entire life, these stereotypes aren’t particularly harmful. As always, the authors stressed the importance of continuing research. One of the lead researchers, Robin Thomas, said, “These types of effects of category labels on lower-level perception are becoming a concern for researchers in cognitive and social psychology because their existence suggest that we may not ever be able to see what’s actually there but will always be influenced by what we expect to be there.” In other words, we’ll always be disappointed by a thin-faced man named Bob.
I’m always mistaken for an Alison or an Emily. Who do you look like?
I don’t get too many “you look like”s, but people do frequently misremember me as Ian. (one syllable, same vowel and prominent consonant - not too far off, I suppose). Here’s my favorite name tool: The Baby Name Wizard’s Name Voyager http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html You can search for any name and see the comparative popularity of different names since 1880.
Wow. The Name Voyager is surely the coolest thing I’ve seen all day… certainly cooler than looking up the origins of my name in baby books. “Lindsay” peaked during the 1980s aa the 44th most popular name (explaining the seven Lindsay/Lindseys in my tenth grade English class) and then declined. Interesting, though, is that it shows a slight rise in 2006, supposedly with the advent of Lindsay Lohan. And if you look at “Paris” you’ll see a very, very sharp peak in the past few years.
When I was growing up in the 1950’s, my name, Shannon, was a boy’s name. So signing up for camp or college always led to an interesting result. I certainly didn’t look like a “Shannon.” No red hair, no freckles. I didn’t know any girls with my name. I was named after my mother’s maiden name resulting in me having both my mother and father’s last names (both extremely Irish) as my own. Usually I introduce myself and follow with, “Like the Irish airport.”
Hi,
My name is Bob but I have never had the experience of being told that I ‘look like a Bob’ or any other name for hat matter. Most people do seem to remember my name so maybe I am a ‘typical’ Bob - I do not have a round face nor do I have a particlarly thin face, but my blond, anglo look could easily be a Bob. As my fellow Englishman Bill Shakespeare once wrote ‘a rose by any other name’ - or what’s in a name!
Yours, Bob Kirk
Los Angeles
Are names ‘magnetic’?
In PNG a number of years ago, a large % of the staff had Brian as the first name and in Guyana the dominant name was Paul. Could there be any possible ‘other’ reason than simple coincidence?
Good luck
George