Does a Person’s Name Impact Happiness?

A person’s name might affect his or her happiness, because people who have rare names report higher levels of happiness than those with more common names, research shows. Researchers believe this could be the result of humans’ subconscious desire to be considered unique from others. Research also reveals that people who have common names are likely to rate their names as being more rare than they actually are, a psychology term referred to as the false uniqueness effect.

More about the impact of names:

• About 20% of parents reported regretting their children’s names, according to one 2013 British study. Common reasons were the difficulty other people had spelling the name or that it was too unusual.
• Boys who have been given names that are traditionally associated with girls have been found to be at a higher risk of disciplinary problems during adolescence, which is thought to be because of self-consciousness from being teased about their names.
• A person who has high self-esteem is more likely to prefer words that contain the same letters as his or her name, especially words that include the first letter of the name.