What makes a name sound good

Are people with sonorants in their names actually kinder than people with voiceless stops in their names? This sounds outlandish, but there is recent work showing that individuals might change their appearance over time to look like their names. Might it also work for their personalities? To find out, we tested over a thousand people, collecting information about their personalities and their names.

But our other experiments show that people might think they are if all they know about someone is their name. This again suggests that the effect comes from the sounds of the names and is not inferred from the personalities of real people. This matches the smooth outline of the round shape we showed you earlier when we asked you to choose which shape best matches which sound.

Some researchers have suggested that something similar may be happening when sound is matched with personality. Maybe the smoothness of sonorants metaphorically matches an agreeable personality, while the quick changes in voiceless stops match the energetic nature of an extroverted personality. Our results suggest that names carry information that affects what we expect someone to be like in terms of their personality.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. By providing your email, you agree to the Quartz Privacy Policy. My motto when it comes to names, clothes, home decor, etc.

To that end, I consider name flow a nice-to-have—not a must-have. Since flow is simply a nice-to-have, I would never suggest:. FYI—I broke my suggestion. For years I knew I wanted my daughter to have the same middle name as me and my Mom, long before I picked her first name. First-last name flow should not get overlooked in the effort to find the right first-middle name flow.

The first and middle name could go together beautifully, while the first-last name flow is off. When it comes to flow, first-last name flow is the most important since those are the names that will be used everyday. Something to note with first-last name flow is the cultural origins of the last name. Cross-cultural name combos e. The topic may even be a tad controversial. By picking a first name with a different cultural origins than the last name, you are already creating contrast.

Therefore, to create balance, cross-cultural names should coordinate and not compete with each other. One way names can either coordinate or compete is with length.

Here are some examples with a long Italian last name, Mazzarella. This combo passes because both names may be long, but they are also Italian. Cecilia is actually a multicultural name. Once the first name passes with the last name, try alternating syllable counts.

While Lena Josephine Adele and Lena Josephine Maxine both have the same pattern, the first one passes and the second one fails.

Josephine and Maxine simply rhyme too much, which leads to the next qualifier:. Name beginnings can also cause too much repetition, such as in this failed combo: Nora Noreen Gail. Try saying that 10 times fast. Do you think switching the combo will save it? The answer is no. Switching the order of the names e. Why do these names fail next to each other? Often varying syllable counts solves this problem, but if you put two names with the same syllable counts next to each other, at least try to keep the stress on different syllables.

This combo passes because the stress is on the first syllable in Vera and Opal, while the stress is on the second syllable in Delphine. This breaks up a monotonous pattern found in other combos. Statements about the ideal length of a name and about particular phonemes which characterise female or male names will be made. Furthermore, these phonemes will be linked to the phonemes of the last name to see whether parents try to adapt the sound of the first name to the last name.

Eventually, the results of the theoretical and the empirical part will be summarised and, in the best case, the reader will be able to differentiate why the combination Leo Jones is presumably more euphonious than George Jones or why a name like John Whittingham would be more stylish and easier to memorise than Oliver Whittingham. Cutler et al. Altogether, female names are longer than male names. An explanation for this could be that female names often derive from male names and the sex is changed by the addition of a suffix, such as Jacob to Jacobine or Gabriel to Gabriela Cutler et al.

The Office for National Statistics released the list of the most famous first names in England and Wales. Concerning the type of syllables, Slater and Fineman find a higher ratio of open syllables in female names than in male names Slater and Fineman As with the number of syllables, Cutler et al.

The authors indicate that Female names have a significantly higher number of weak initial syllables, with Nevertheless, Wright et al. Furthermore, the authors observe that both female and male disyllabic names primarily have a trochaic stress pattern Wright et al. Concerning polysyllabic words Cutler et al. In Slater and Fineman conducted a study in which they analysed the phonology of North American names with a focus on gender differences.

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