Monday 5 March 2012

Easy to pronounce name helps you excel at life


Is your name Jack? Will? Rob? You may have an easier life than others!

Apparently having an easy to pronounce name can go a long way. Dr Simon Laham reckons that this subtle simpleness is the key to climbing the hierarchy.

This study is related to a previous one in where company names were tested against their success.

If think you think about it, most successful companies have easy to pronounce names, such as Nike, Boots, Apple, Google,  GlaxoSmithKline- okay maybe I lied about the last one..

This new study wanted to link it to people, and found that there was a general trend in simpleness and success too, for example..
  • People with easier names tend to win promotions
  • Lawyers with easier names climbed the ladder higher and faster (metaphorically)
  • People with easier names tended to climb in political ranks higher. (eg, David, Tony, Nick etc)
If you look at TV programmes, likeable characters have simple names, eg. Bart Simpson, Ed Ed and Eddy, Drake and Josh etc.

However

This opens a whole new branch into work discrimination, one that people aren't even aware they are doing. However Laham says that this is the first kind of this study, and more needs to be done.

I think that's quite an interesting point; so much discrimination is being dealt with and politicians think they've 
hit the nail on every point, except this large one!

Obviously this isn't the only point, personality also plays a huge role in the way you bias a selection.

(If you're a bit cautious, try not to name your child poovruvibdvubsdfbuvbbugbububggdfbgiggity)

Nothing much else is known about the psychology of how fluent your name is, however we can count on big Dr Simon Laham in the future to unravel the mystery!

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