On the Meaning of Personal Names: A View From Cognitive Psychology

Abstract

I contrast two different answers to the question of how much meaning personal names carry. A review of the cognitive psychology of proper name memory suggests that people's names are typically not processed for meaning. Contradictorily, there is ample empirical and anecdotal evidence that personal names do carry meaning. A solution to this paradox is proposed through two considerations. First, I suggest that a name's meaning carries most force when one is first exposed to it; thereafter the meaning becomes progressively less important. Second, there is variation in how much a person's name means to its bearer. Although the names of some people clearly influence behavior in some ways, personal names do not carry the same degree of meaning for everyone. By considering the psychological concept of identity, I claim that one's name is destined, for most people, to be little more than a label.