Nomen est omen - by Roger's Bacon - Secretum Secretorum

Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck, American education professional with a dissertation on uncommon African-American names in the classroom

Maybe this is all coincidence, or maybe it’s nominative determinism, the hypothesis that people that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names (an idea captured in the ancient Roman proverb “nomen est omen” meaning “the name is the sign”). Psychologist Lawrence Casler proposed three possible explanations for nominative determinism: one's self-image and self-expectation being internally influenced by one's name; the name acting as a social stimulus, creating expectations in others that are then communicated to the individual; and genetics—attributes suited to a particular career being passed down the generations alongside the appropriate occupational surname.

But does nominative determinism actually exist—are people with occupation-related names over-represented in those occupations? After an extensive review of the literature (lol jk I just read the wikipedia page), my conclusion is: eh, I guess so? Some studies have found a fairly strong effect but these have been criticized for failing to properly account for confounds; other (slightly) more rigorous studies seem to find weak effects and some analyses show no effect at all. So basically it’s just like any other psychological theory that we’ve turned a more critical eye to in recent years.

Leave a Comment