Do you think first names can reflect your personality?

I agree with Canadiangran, I think we often become who we are because of our names.
I have a fairly common name, but oddly, until I went away to college, I never knew another one.
I was apparently named after a long dead relative, who was ‘no better than she should be’ and comparisons were always been drawn by my gran, had I been named after a more loved dead relative, I may have developed a different personality, a more nice one.
Or is that just a load of rubbish?

I don’t know about within families (although presumably your parents had affection for the relative?) but I do think that names can sometimes influence how people turn out, in a ‘Boy Named Sue’ kind of way.

We have seen how (some) teachers allow names to influence their feelings towards children, and that could very easily cause them to do less well in those teachers’ classes. If others also make assumptions based on names, the cumulative effect could shape children’s behaviour and life chances.

I think that the choices parents make are likely to be indicative of their general attitudes too, and this is likely to transfer to their child-rearing. So someone who likes to think that they are ‘unusual’ or ‘different’ will give their child an unusual name (or an unusual spelling of a more conventional name), and go on to bring up the child to see themselves as free-spirited or unconventional, whereas a more conforming parent might choose a more traditional name and bring up their child accordingly.

Nine of this allows for differences in personality though, and won’t apply to everyone.

Never met a Zoe that I’ve liked. And Olivia has always seemed an unlucky name to me. Julie’s never seem to have much luck in relationships, in my experience. All nonsense of course!

My friend and I both have virtue names but neither of them match our personalities.

That got me thinking, kittylester. What if someone called Honesty was a thief? Or someone called Faith had none ? One of my middle names is Diana but it doesn’t feel right, I don’t feel like a Diana. However, when she heard it a friend said, ‘that’d be right,’ so maybe she sees something I don’t!

I have 2 names and my parents called me by the 2nd one. So when my first name is called out, at the hospital for example, I have strange feeling of being a different person.

I think both first and surname together make a difference. My married name is alliterative, think Laura Love, which sounds light and friendly whereas my maiden name was more formal sounding such as Laura Rossiter. For this reason I kept my maiden name during my professional life. It worked well too because it separated my professional and private life.
Does ‘maiden’ name now sound rather odd? I hadn’t noticed until now.