For better or for worse, your name has shaped your life in countless ways. Since your name is typically the first thing people will learn about you, it will inevitably influence how others perceive you. So, how does this affect your personality? 

While many factors go into shaping an individual, their name is always the least expected factor that truly impacts a person’s personality. Of course, your name is not the largest contributor to your personality, but it plays a surprisingly large role.

So, something as simple as the letter that your name begins with could have played a role in how you view the world, and thus how your personality developed.

This month’s post explores some aspects of names that tend to affect how the person behaves as an individual. These characteristics of names have been directly linked to certain behaviors, according to various studies. 

Your Upbringing

When your parents first named you, they likely handpicked the name because it meant something to them. This, in turn, can be a good indication of how someone was raised. 

For example, culturally conservative parents may name their children traditional names that are appropriate to their way of life. In contrast, some progressive parents may opt to pick a more modern or unusual name for their child. 

So, for example, you could expect someone with a name like Kris Duggan to have been brought up in a fairly typical American or European household. Whereas someone named Maksim Chmerkovskiy is more likely to have been brought up outside of America — in this case, they were born and raised in Ukraine.

Now, your upbringing obviously plays a significant factor in shaping who you are as a person. So your name can be a good indication to others for what kind of person you may be.

Self-Esteem

Another surprising personality trait that could be linked to your name is your self-esteem. It’s pretty simple science: Those who experience positive interactions when sharing their name tend to have better self-esteem. Those who receive negative feedback when sharing their name pay think negatively of their name, and therefore themselves.

How someone perceives their name could occur in a variety of different ways. For example, if you have a long first name, it’s probably common for other people to misspell it. This could play a part in shaping an individual’s self-esteem. If people constantly mess up your name, you may view it as people dismissing or not paying proper attention to you or viewing you as not important enough to get your name right.  

Going back to our earlier example, an individual with the name of Kris Duggan would likely not experience people mispronouncing or misspelling his name. On the contrary, Maksim Chmerkovskiy would most certainly experience people misspelling and mispronouncing his name. 

Wrapping It Up

In short, your name does play a sizable factor in how you are perceived and how your own personality develops. That said, try not to focus too much on how your name impacts your personality, and instead focus on what you can do yourself.