kobayashi maru

I have a theory that there’s more to names than we think. Of course it’s fairly common knowledge that to make it very far as an entertainer, in any sub-genre, it helps very much to have a marketable name. Bands sometimes agonize for eons over this very issue, trying to come up with a name that sounds cool and reflects the band’s values. But I have a hunch that the qualities a name conjures up have repercussions in a larger arena than just entertainment. Of course we could make the case that this is a recent development due to the all-pervasive nature of the media in society and culture, but that would be putting the cart before the horse, I think. I would make the case that our response to a name’s qualities is instinctive and thus originated before the era of mass media. It’s just another built-in human quality that the media recognized and made use of, not the other way around.

The most obvious example of this ingrained bias we have for the right name, in the public arena, is in our presidents. Think about the presidents whose tenure in office was a success (and even those who were failures)–do you think a president like John F. Kennedy would have been looked at the same way if his name had been Archibald W. Berkerleck? Or would we revere Abraham Lincoln like we do if he had been born Seymour Trumblehome? But more than just looking back at them through the lens of hindsight–in their time, would the American people have accorded them as much credibility and instinctively had enough confidence in their policies to make them as great and effective as they were? It’s a fair question.

The name bias extends, I believe, even into the area of a hopeful’s electability in the first place. One of the primary criteria of a presidential aspirant is that his or her name sound “presidential.” Not many people will go with me on this, but I think that it was a major factor in the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. I maintained for months beforehand that Gore would not be president (among other reasons) because he didn’t have the right name for the job. Whatever the man’s character qualities and platform, which really should be at the forefront of anyone’s consideration of a future commander-in-chief, his name, to me at least, just conjured up images of slasher flicks and unpleasantness. Gore. Maybe I’m the only one, but I have a hunch more people were subconsciously affected by it than they know. And there are more obvious examples: Spiro T. Agnew, Michael S. Dukakis, Lamar Alexander, Ralph Nader… Sorry folks, those just aren’t presidential names. On the other hand, “John Kerry” most definitely is the right name for the job–strong, concise, commanding–and based on this criterion alone I was far more unsure about the outcome of the 2004 election than the previous. Call me shallow–I believe it’s a big factor. It’s all subjective in the end, but name one president with a stereotypically unpleasant name. “Millard Fillmore” isn’t ideal, and “Calvin Coolidge” isn’t perfect either, but by and large you’ll find that all the names of past presidents sound appropriate for the job.

And of course it all trickles down to daily life as well. I wonder sometimes what kind of impression someone would form of me if they only knew my name and nothing else. I try to think about my friends’ names while blocking out what I know of their personalities, and think solely of what impression I glean from their name. I’ve recently been getting more involved in the local church group, and I’ve been meeting lots of folks. Trying to remember everyone’s name is a challenge, and I haven’t yet gotten good senses of the nature of their personalities, so I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept in reference to my day-to-day. Just today I met a young lady named Meredith, and immediately upon hearing her announce her name and shaking her hand, I had a good impression of her based almost entirely on her name, which I find very appealing. I hope I have the good sense not to let it override an assessment of much more important character qualities, but if nothing else I’m self aware and it provides fodder for a journal entry.