How Peter Piper Picked a Profession

In 1994, Jen Hunt wrote in The Psychologist that “authors gravitate to the area of research which fits their surname,” citing a paper on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology by A. J. Splatt and D. Weedon. A reader of New Scientist gave the idea a name: nominative determinism.¹ It sounds absurd; that’s the fun of it.

Psychologist Brett Pelham took the idea seriously. In a 2002 paper², he claimed people named Dennis were overrepresented among dentists. The effect, he argued, was “implicit egotism” — we’re drawn to things that resemble us, even our own names.

I had millions of LinkedIn-sourced contacts and a free afternoon.

Drum-roll…

People are 1.5% more likely to hold a job title starting with the same letter as their first name than chance predicts, after you account for simple confounders.³ Statistically, the sun will burn out before this is a fluke ⁴. Practically: If you lined up 1,000 people whose names start with “J,” about 60 would have J-titled jobs. Without ‘nominative determinism’, 59 would. Yes… the extra person would be hard to spot at a party.

Pelham has egg on his face

Pelham’s most famous claim — that Dennises flock to dentistry — is not true. 7 dentists in 61 million contacts are named Dennis, against 11 expected. A 0.60x decrease: Dennis avoids dentistry.

Lawrence the lawyer checks out at 2.40x. But one hit and one miss from the same paper should make us suspicious of the method rather than confident.

You said confounders - what confounds?

But “real correlation”⁵ and “caused by your name” are different claims. If you want to show causation, you’ll have to explain two rather weird patterns:

Rare names drive the effect. Common names — the Michaels, Nicolas, Amits, and Mohammeds — show near-zero ‘nominative determinism’ (+0.4%) after gender and country controls. Rare names show a +3.5%.⁶

Large geographical shifts. France and India show the strongest effects (+6% and +4%) while Germany and the Netherlands have no change. If implicit egotism were universal human truth, you’d expect consistency across countries.

Heritage more than destiny

The surname results are more dramatic and less mysterious.

A Butler who butles is 49 times more common than chance.⁷ Families called Butler were butlers in the 14th century. Some still maintain the family legacy. The job came first and the name followed.

Are Karen and Al boomers?

Separately from job titles; we also see some more predictive (not causal) patterns:

Brevity pays. Two-letter names (Al, Ed) have a 5.7% chance of having a job role that is more senior (executive; team lead). Eight-letter names (Benjamin, Jonathan) have 3.5%. Yet - it’s very unlikely that people get lazy when filling out a promotion form and just pick Al over Alvin. Instead consider age as a factor - older generations preferred shorter names, and older people hold senior titles.⁸

Karens are in management Karen, Linda, and Susan have the highest management rates among common feminine names, ~3%. Emily, Sophia, and Olivia sit at half that. Again this is not because Karen argued her way to the top; peak-Boomer names belong to people old enough to be managers.

So what?

The effect is real. The same forces that give you your name shape your career options; the name itself (likely) does nothing.

You are, to a first approximation, no more destined for dentistry by being called Dennis than you are destined for wealth by being called Rich.⁹