Revealed: The surprising link between your name and your life choices - and it could explain why Shakira became a singer while Anya Taylor-Joy rose to fame as an actress
- Scientists say we are drawn to jobs and places sharing letters with our names
- Someone called Dennis is statistically more likely to be a dentist from Denver
Are you a dentist called Dennis, a hairdresser called Harriet, or a lawyer called Lawrence?
If so, this might not just be an amusing coincidence.
That's according to researchers from the University of Utah, who say that people's names may be the reason that they end up in certain careers.
In a new study, they found that people are drawn to places and professions which share the first letter of their name, in an effect known as 'nominative determinism'.
According to the team, this could explain why Shakira became a singer, while Anya Taylor-Joy rose to fame as an actress.
Scientists say we are drawn to things that match our names by an effect called implicit egotism. This could explain why Anya Taylor-Joy (left) became an actor or Agatha Christie (right) an author
When surnames first emerged in the 11th century, they were often a simple reflection of someone's career - with names like Hunter, Smith, or Baker.
Nominative determinism goes further, arguing that people subconsciously choose life decisions that are better suited to their names.
To test this theory, researchers from the University of Utah analysed 3,410 names from Common Crawl, Twitter, Google News, and Google Books.
Even after controlling for factors like gender and ethnicity, the researchers found that nominative determinism appeared to have a consistent effect across all the data.
People's names were linked to careers with matching first letters at a higher rate than would be expected by chance.
Scientists suggest that people are more likely to end up in careers which share a letter with their first name. This could explain why David Lynch (pictured left) would become a famous director while Shakira (pictured right) became a singer
In their paper, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the authors write: 'We find consistent evidence of the relationship between people's names and a preference for major life choices starting with the same letter as their first name.'
For instance, someone called Dennis is more likely to be a dentist while someone called Lawrence might be more likely to become a lawyer.
Names also appear to have an effect on where we chose to live, with people being more likely to live in a city sharing the first letter of their name.
That would mean that London should be home to a higher than chance lumber of people whose names start with the letter 'l'.
The findings could explain why Dianne Buswell (pictured with Bobby Brazier on Strictly Come Dancing) shot to fame as a dancer
Interestingly, the researchers also discovered that the effects of nominative determinism weren't consistent across the years or between genders.
In the early 20th century the data suggests that men were more affected by nominative determinism than women, but this difference reduced over time.
The researchers suggest that as women gained more freedom to choose their own careers, nominative determinism began to produce more of a pronounced effect.
Some scientists, including those behind this research, suggest that nominative determinism is the product of a psychological factor called 'implicit egotism'.
This is the theory that people are subconsciously attracted to places, people, and things that resemble them.
This phenomenon has been linked to everything from the people we find attractive to the places and jobs we find most appealing.
Some people's names seem almost too fitting for their careers. For example, Igor Judge (pictured) was the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales - making him the UK's top judge
However, it might be that we are simply more likely to remember interestingly fitting names such as that of Vania Stambolova, the Bulgarian athlete who competes in the hurdles
In 2002, Brett Pelham, a psychology professor at Montgomery College in Maryland even found that men named George and Geoffrey were 'disproportionately likely' to work in geosciences.
However, it is worth noting that these shifts are small and can be overwhelmed by more significant factors.
For example, in this recent study, the researchers found that those who had attended higher education were less influenced by nominative determinism.
They suggest that this may be because having a degree is a bigger identity marker than the first letter of your name.
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