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Is ambition your middle name? Even if it’s not, your name might be helping you out career-wise.
A study published in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that easy-to-pronounce names are more positively regarded by others than those that are difficult to pronounce.
They’ve named this “the name-pronounciation effect.”
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The fact in itself is interesting, but compared with the fact that people with these same names tend to have higher-ranking professional positions, it’s particularly noteworthy. Granted, the field studied was a law firm, but there’s no reason to believe that its results wouldn’t apply to another profession.
How Much Do Our Names Really Matter?
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The authors of the study cite other work showing that more easily pronounceable words, names of stocks and names of drugs create a similarly positive impression–people view them more positively because of their simplicity. But when it comes to stocks and drugs and words, our inclination toward them isn’t such a big deal. We have control over the stocks we pick (and someone, somewhere has control over their names), over the medicines we take and over the words we choose.
We don’t have control over our names.
Do we really think that a Smith will necessarily do better professionally than a Tahmincioglu? Nah. Your professional success depends on things like your interview prowess, your professional conduct and your commitment to the job. It’s interesting to speculate, but don’t leave your fate in the hands of your name.
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