The Impact of Names on Child’s Future: Names Shaping Identity
What thoughts wander through your minds when you hear the name “Muskan”?
This is a name that reflects a person who is always cheerful and has a pretty smile!
According to research, it takes just 1/10 second to analyze someone’s face and personality based on a name. It is inherent in humans to do so and seems more than just an attractive quotient.
In India and all around the world, we tend to associate names either with their meaning or through a dive into the nostalgia of an identically named person we know in our lives.
India, being a land of rich ethnicity, culture, caste, religion, and language, has a rich collection of names associated with their family’s customs, beliefs, and psychological identity.
Our names are indeed one unique self-identification that remains intact with us throughout our lives!
But are you aware of the impact a name has in shaping your child’s future?
This blog covers all the possible aspects of the science behind a child name and various other factors associated with it.
The Psychology Behind Names
Parents take huge effort, creativity, and sometimes also a zest of movies to name their child. They do so with a hope of positive association of the meaning of the name with their child throughout their lives.
Alas! The excitement to name their child overshadows the fact that the children, apart from the meaning of their names, are also influenced by other external factors like their environment, culture, community, and their own life experiences to define their personalities.
Here are few Psychological Impacts of the Names:
1. First Impressions:
This measures the instant association one feels upon hearing a name, based on their meaning or past familiarity.
For example, names like “Shantanu” or “Aman” mean calm and peaceful, while names like “Durga” or “Shakti” have a cultural context and emphasize strength, power, and protection. Similarly, names like “Vikram” or “Rani” acknowledge pride, grace, and poise, thus imprinting slight societal expectations on them to behave in a certain way and so on.
This is something one perceives before even saying “hello” for the first time.
2. Name-Letter Effect:
This means that the name's impact on the child ends up influencing a lot of other factors in their lives in future. Some of them include:
- Self-similarity bias: This signifies an uncontrollable urge to prioritize the letters in their own names while choosing a friend, profession, or even a life partner for that matter. For example, a girl named "Daisy” would always steer towards names having letters of her own name.
- Self-Image: The optimism and satisfaction one feels with their names also boosts self-confidence and triggers positive social interactions.
- Professional bias: It is believed that your names even have a professional impact by having the capability to influence the hiring process. For example, guys named “Rajesh” and “Vivan” despite having similar qualifications, would be biased in regard to their names.
- Label-effect: It signifies the negative association that one is imposed with throughout their childhood. For example, a person named “Pawan” who is a little chubby might always be laughed at due to his weight or labeling the child with words like “dumb” or “ fool” might also degrade their self-confidence.
The impact of names on a child's future is indeed more than what just meets the eye.
Also Read: How color affects your baby?
Cultural Impact on Name Choices
A rich cultural diversity in India plays an important role in the names, shaping the identity, personality, beliefs, and traditions of an individual.
The bifurcation of the baby names is impacted by the geographical and cultural anatomy of India. That is:
1. Zones:
- North: The baby names in this region have an essence of Indo-Aryan languages and a tilt towards Hindu Mythology, particularly Ramayana and Mahabharata, or Sikhism or Sufism. The most common names are either related to gods (Ram, Arjun, Krishna), nature (Sheetal, Gagan), or virtues (Vivek, Yasha).
Naming languages: Sanskrit, Punjabi, Urdu.
- South: This region has linguistic roots from Dravidian languages. Their naming tradition is hence aligned towards Tamil Sangam literature and local Hindu and religious deities. For example, names like Vidhay, Dhanalaxmi, Meenakshi, Narayana, etc. The naming methodology in this region is sometimes also followed by “Ayappa” or “Siva” as suffixes as a respect to these saints.
Naming Languages: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.
- East: The baby naming in this region is marked by literary traditions, spirituality, and nature in general. The local literary culture, mostly the Bhakti movement, influenced this region, due to which many of the names are also derived from the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Chaitanya Mahaparbhu, etc., like Aurobindo, Bikash, Debojit, etc. In some parts of the North East and Odia, nature also influences the baby names like Dipali, Nilima, etc.
Naming Languages: Bengali, Odia, Hindi, Assamese, and various other North-eastern languages.
- West: The baby names from this region have their ties with the rich historical influence of valor and pride. It has an essence of Hinduism, Jainism, and local folk traditions. In Rajasthan and Maharashtra, the names represent a royal lineage like Meera, Rajan, Jodha, Chhatrapati, etc. Gujarat having a Jain dominance has names like Hemant, Siddhi, Vibha, etc.
Naming Languages: Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, Rajasthani, Konkani, Sindhi, and Urdu.
2. Traditional vs. modern names:
The traditional names are mostly impacted by cultural heritage, religious influence, family traditions, and various dialects and customs, while the modern names are more aligned towards the contemporary world, representing globalization, uniqueness, pop culture, short and simple, and more gender-neutral options.
Example:
Traditional: Yogesh, Aditi, Suman, Ajay, etc.
Modern: Zara, Zoe, Liam, Kai, etc.
3. Astrological Considerations
Astrology, in short, sums up the science behind child names. This includes various factors like:
- Nakshatra: This represents the lunar mission under which a child is born. For example, if the baby is born in Ashwini Nakshatra, then they would get the syllables like “A” or "Aa”.
- Zodiac Signs: This refers to naming the baby according to the Rashi they are born in. For example, a child born in Aries month could be named with "A, L, E and K,” and so on.
- Time of Birth: This is a part of Vedic astrology, which includes naming the child according to the planetary influences and characterizing specific qualities during their birth.
- Numerology: This includes naming the child on the basis of their life path number to enhance their luck and good fortune.
Mahurat, which is the auspicious time for a child's naming ceremony, also plays a very important role in naming the child.
Also Read: Astrological forecasting for children's behavior: 90% of parents stunned!
The Academic and Career Influence
The name is sometimes underestimated in regards to just being something to address the person, but it is indeed far more than just a combination of syllables.
A name influences a lot of things, from academics to career to life in general. Let us witness how!
1. Effect of Name Perception:
It is strange how the perception of your name can make things easy or hard for you throughout your life.
- Early Years: Teachers or others subconsciously hold the kids with easy and common names in high regard compared to the ones with little difficult or unfamiliar names. Also, the kids with traditional or difficult names are usually mocked, thus hampering their self-confidence, which also affects their academic performance.
- Career: A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research has revealed that during job applications, the modern or “white-sounding names” received 50% more positive responses compared to the ethnic or traditional ones. Also, hearing an ethnic name enforces humans towards the cultural bias, where they start judging the person’s family, culture, and background just on the basis of a name.
- Personal Life: In friendships, people with easy-sounding or common names are considered more approachable, and the unique ones, on the other hand, spark curiosity. While dating or marriage, the subconscious bias takes over where some names are found more attractive compared to others, based on people’s individual perceptions.
2. Effect of Name Uniqueness:
In today’s world, having unique names has become a trend, but as parents, care must be taken while naming your children. A unique name would make your child stand out, but a hard-to-pronounce name could just make the situations for your kid awkward at times, hampering their self-confidence.
Also, parents who would give their child a unique name would certainly also give them a unique upbringing too, compared to the ones who give their children an ethnic name.
Social Dynamics and Names
The name's impact on children in accordance with forming positive social dynamics with peers is largely influenced by individual cultural representations and beliefs. That is:
- Peer Interaction: If your child’s name sounds very appealing to the ears and is also easy to pronounce, they have a high probability to establish healthy peer relationships due to their positive recognition in the group. On the other hand, a hard-to-pronounce name could end up isolating your child due to awkwardness during their name pronunciation or teasing or mispronunciation, thus affecting their self-esteem and social bonding skills.
- Cultural Representations: There are kids who come from rich cultural and historical heritage backgrounds. This makes their names derived from their cultural roots and family history, due to which they sometimes end up sounding traditional. Their unacceptance, by teasing, would force them to alter their names in order to fit in the crowd, thus distancing themselves from their cultural identity.
Legal and Practical Considerations
There are a lot of legal factors regarding the naming laws around the world to facilitate an easy flow in the naming process as well as the child’s future.
1. Naming Conundrums:
The naming laws are tightly monitored to ensure a positive name impact on a child's future.
The naming laws are inherently tied up with countries’ culture, historical heritage, customs, beliefs, traditions, and values. The registrars of birth take special care by prohibiting specific names that could sound derogatory or offensive, thus impacting the child’s future.
In India, names are also required to be in sync with the cultural norms and laws and must avoid containing numbers, symbols, or titles of any kind.
Different countries have their own naming laws in response to the acceptance of their cultural history and present laws. For example, in Germany, unisex names are not allowed; in Iceland, parents must only choose the names of their kids from a government-approved names list, and so on.
2. Future-Proofing Names:
As parents, it is important to consider all the possible aspects while naming your child. Sometimes, the names that might sound cute in their childhood might sound informal in their later lives.
Also, if you have to mandatorily name your child in accordance with your cultural ties, then ensure they also have potential nicknames to be addressed with. This would do away with their embarrassment among their peers in the future.
Lastly, always try to opt for the names that are unique yet timeless to guarantee their acceptance in the long term, through various stages in their lives.
Choosing a Name with R for Rabbit
R for Rabbit’s Baby Name Combiner tool helps you get amazing personalized cute names derived from the parents’ names. All you have to do is input both the names of the parents, select gender, origin or religion and get some amazing names to choose from.
You can also use advanced filters that lets you choose the number of letters, beginning, middle and end letters and also numerology to receive super personalized names for your child.
After all, who knows if you come across a pretty name with a beautiful meaning for your child!
Conclusion
The science behind child naming is way beyond just mahurats and namkaran sessions. The names indeed shape the identity of the children, which later also impacts the development of various essential skills in them.
An accepted name would always make your child confident, thus also motivating them towards other essential learning accomplishments beneficial for their lives.
Our names are the tags we get after birth that we carry throughout our lives, and therefore, as parents, it is our responsibility to name our children following proper thoughts and repercussions of the future.
Lastly, do check out R for Rabbit’s website for such amazing tools and baby products that you would absolutely love.