Your Name Might Shape Your Face, Researchers Say

NPR:

In my head, a person with the name Danny has a boyish face and a perpetual smile. Zoes have wide eyes and wild hair and an air of mild bemusement.

There might actually be something to the idea that people who share a name also share a stereotypical “look” to them, researchers say. In one experiment, published Monday in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, scientists found that when people are shown a stranger’s face and a choice of five names, they pick the right name about 35 percent of the time.

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It may also be that people mold their names to fit them, says Melissa Lea, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Millsaps University in Mississippi. “I have several colleagues who say, ‘[My first name] didn’t fit me. So I use my middle name.’ That may be because they weren’t matching the stereotype,” she says. Don’t feel like a Richard? Maybe Dick will suit you better.

Read the whole story: NPR