Nominative Determinism

A phrase in a tagline in this week’s issue stumped several readers — who had enough curiosity to (gasp!) look it up! So let’s talk about it. First, the story.

Inhuman More than a dozen bystanders rushed to aid a woman in the parking lot of the Jacksonville (Fla.) DMV: she had jumped out of an SUV with one of her children, and was struggling to get her other child out of the back seat. The driver dragged her across the parking lot until the bystanders surrounded the car to help retrieve her and the second child; the man then sped away. Deputies from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office found him at a shopping center and put him at gunpoint. “What did I do?” he repeatedly asked as they forced him to the ground to handcuff him. Yanni Human, 26, is so far charged with child abuse, false imprisonment, battery, possession of marijuana, and resisting an officer without violence. The unnamed woman said Human had been subjecting her to increasing violence over the previous six months, and said she had video proof he had threatened to kill her. (RC/WFLA Tampa) ...Nominative determinism sometimes fails big time.

Frames from security video, and the arresting cop’s bodycam. Click to see larger.

Obviously, there’s a clue in the title of this page.

Feedback

The first note was from Dan in Virginia, a Premium subscriber since 2003:

I am not often compelled to google a word or phrase, but “nominative determinism” was such a case. Until today I did not know there was a scholarly term for people like Albert Payne, DDS. My vocabulary of humorously useless words and phrases is now expanded, and I thank you for that.

“Useless”?! I am astounded, sir!

There are LOTS of dentists named Dr. Payne.

That was followed shortly by Chuck in Arizona, a Premium subscribe since 2005:

Your Nominative determinism comment is the most obscure punchline I have ever seen in your wonderful, informative publication. I wonder how many of your readers know what that means? I did not, and I consider myself a well read person, and have both a bachelors and juris doctor degree, and have practiced law for more than 50 years. But, thanks for the continuing education, and keep up the great work.

First, of course I love it when my writing causes people to stop and think, and stop, think, and research is even better. So let’s dig into it here, shall we?

Origin

I’m not sure where I had first heard the term, but it was years ago, perhaps as far back as colleagues at JPL, since that’s a pretty nerdy, sciencey place. And one of my colleagues would pass on his copies of the Journal of Irreproducible Results when he was done with them, and I would not be surprised if this concept was mentioned, or even featured, there. Still, the term is not all that old: it’s younger than True itself, but only by about half a year.

Dr. Cavonius, from his obit in the science journal, Perception (2005, v34 p241).

The London-based journal New Scientist first introduced the term in late 1994, and wrote in its Feedback column that it was suggested by “C. R. Cavonius” — who would be Prof. Carl Richard Cavonius (1932–2003), an American-born researcher renowned for his contributions to the study of human vision.

Sadly, “renowned scientist” doesn’t always result in a Wikipedia entry, even if he did contribute to such a scholarly pursuit as Nominative Determinism as a sideline, so let’s take a quick tangent. He went by Dick, was born in California, and raised in New England and Florida. His father came from Finland, but spoke Swedish. His mother was born in Antrea when it was part of Finland (it is now Kamennogorsk, Russia). She spoke Finnish. Summary: a microcosm of the Great American Melting Pot of American immigrants. E Pluribus Unum.

Dick received his Bachelor’s degree in physics from Wesleyan University in 1953, and then served in the U.S. Navy as a reconnaissance pilot, flying long-distance patrols over the Arctic and North Atlantic. He returned to school while still serving, receiving his Ph.D from Brown University in 1962. He remained in the Naval Reserve as a Lt. Commander, serving until retirement age. Upon his death, he had the honor of being buried at sea from the USS Winston S Churchill.

For his Ph.D, he studied under Lorrin Riggs (1912–2008), who also lacks a Wikipedia entry, and researched visual perception. Riggs is best known for developing the stabilized image technique, a critical tool in vision science that allowed researchers to study how the eye perceives, and the brain processes, visual information.

After receiving his doctorate, Cavonius was Director of the Eye Research Foundation in Bethesda, Md., and later held research positions in Munich, Cambridge, and Amsterdam before accepting the Directorship of the Institut für Arbeitsphysiologie at the University of Dortmund, Germany, in 1977, leading a sensory science research group until his retirement in 1997.

His seminal 1975 study with Oscar Estévez detailed the contrast sensitivity functions of individual cone types in the human eye (PDF available from the NIH National Library of Medicine), which demonstrated that dark text on a light background enhances reading accuracy compared to the reverse, thereby influencing modern display design.

Namefreaks vs. Nominative Determinism

I’ve long had an interest in namefreaks, which I sometimes refer to as Freaks of Nomenclature. True’s archives lists hundreds of stories tagged as namefreaks, with at least one in every volume of the book collections, starting with the 1994 story of an Australian politician who was outraged at a NSW restaurant’s publicity gag, saying it would employ nude chefs. (Sample: “Kylie, 22, decided to hang her hooters over the hotplate when she got fed up with being a lingerie waitress.”) The outraged politician’s name: Dick Face.

Namefreakish stories continued with the Scottish lass who admitted to assault and violence: Happy Stewart. The Texas State Rep. who wanted traffic cameras to monitor drivers: Joe Driver. And the absolute classic of the Florida Woman arrested in a crystal meth manufacturing scheme: Crystal Beth Williams.

Cardinal Sin (pictured here in 1988) would welcome visitors to the archiepiscopal palace in Mandaluyong with, “Welcome to the House of Sin!” He died in 2005. (CC3.0 by Ernmuhl via Wikimedia Commons)

The idea goes way back: Psychologist Carl Jung wrote in his 1960 book Synchronicity that there was a “sometimes quite grotesque coincidence between a man’s name and his peculiarities.” Crystal Beth is a great example of that “grotesque” aspect.

Namefreaks are about aptronyms (sometimes erroneously spelled aptonym): “An aptronym, aptonym, or euonym is a personal name aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner (e.g. their occupation),” says Wikipedia.

The idea of Nominative determinism takes it a step farther: that one’s name leads them to jobs, such as the name Painter makes it more likely that they’ll become an artist, or even a house painter. Even New Scientist used the example of the Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Sin.

Obviously, not every Sin becomes a Cardinal, nor every Painter becomes a, well, painter. And, alas, not every Human acts like one should. Hence, “…Nominative determinism sometimes fails big time.”

Nominative determinism is the idea that your name gives some direction to your life. Namefreaks are more like linguistic banana peels: something that adds a laugh after we see them fall.

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11 Comments on “Nominative Determinism

  1. I didn’t know the term at the time (I was about ten), but when my father was in the Royal Air Force and posted to Singapore, we were driving in the city and I saw a sign for a dentist. The dentist’s name was Tong Fang. I suspect that he is long gone, as this was in the mid-60s.

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  2. Are you familiar with Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck? Vandyck is her married name, but Marijuana Pepsi is her birth name, which she refused to change despite her teachers encouraging her to go by Mary or something else. Her own unusual name inspired her to write her doctoral thesis on how having distinctive names effects children. So it definitely did inspire her path in life. On the other hand, she has never used marijuana or drank Pepsi.

    I was not. She does have a Wikipedia entry, and was charmed by part of the introduction: “She first realized her name was unusual at age nine.” and “She said her mother told her, ‘your name will take you around the world’.” It appears her mother was correct. -rc

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  3. My high school history teacher was Mr. Learn (Gilbert Learn!) I always had my own belief that names could affect ultimate life direction, but I never knew a term for it. Thanks for the new info!

    You’re welcome! May you be blessed with much silver. -rc

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    • I had a computer teacher named Mrs. Keys in elementary school, she taught us (among other things) touch typing.

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  4. I was familiar with the term from New Scientist; I imagined that people not using the expression thought that it was an in-house phrase or even proprietary. (I recall you made a similar point about the spelling ‘Namephreaks’…)

    I’ve never used “namephreak”. I’ve used “Freak of Nomenclature”, but wouldn’t call that proprietary either. -rc

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  5. There’s a Javanese belief that “a name is a prayer”. Hence, there’s many Gen Xer in Java named “Sugiyono, Suharto, Mulyono” in order to make their life “prosperous, rich”. But those names are not a majority in current generation.

    Interesting! -rc

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  6. I find it quite funny that the best plumber in this little town I now hang my hat is named Carpenter. I’ve joked that he should partner with a carpenter named Gardner, and a landscaper named Plumber (or at least Plummer).

    Now, I have a couple of phrases to go along with (or contradict) my sense of humour.

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  7. In the early 1960s my parents bought a house using an agent named Mr. Swindle. Far as I know, he did an honest job.

    I used to wonder how tough it must have been to find clients with a moniker like that, until I myself spent over two decades in sales. A name like that had to be the greatest “ice breaker” in the world with new clients.

    OMG, I’ve just proposed a whole sub-genre of something I didn’t even know existed twenty minutes ago: CONTRA-nominative determinism.

    See? This area is ripe for research! -rc

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  8. I was surprised at first at the comments you got — I could have sworn you’ve used “nominative determinism” in a True newsletter before — but I guess either my brain substituted “freak of nomenclature” for “nominative determinism” or vice versa. Either way, it’s a great phrase to use.

    My brother was in the Future Educators of America program when he was in high school, and part of that was that the students went across the road to the elementary school and helped out in one of the classrooms. Since he was talking about going to college for aerospace engineering, naturally, they assigned him to help with the science lab.

    You could practically hear the squeals of shock and delight all the way back in our high school when the teacher introduced him to the class of second-graders with, “Class, this is Mr. Sciance, who’s come to help with your Science Fair projects….”

    Heh! And your memory is good. It was the slug for the lead story in issue 1578 (8 Sept. 2024), about a N. Irish man who hired a lawyer to fight a speeding ticket (100 mph in a 60 zone). His name is Mr. Moron. I don’t recall any comments about it from that time. My tag suggested he didn’t think out the cost:benefit impact of his barrister’s invoice. -rc

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  9. Wow! Nine comments and three are from Virginia. I guess this makes it 4 out of 10 since I’m from Virginia. On top of that, I’m presently in BC and one of the commenters is from BC.

    I’m a kidney stone producer (over two dozen) and my first urologist was Dr. Pole.

    And here I wasn’t even taking a poll. -rc

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  10. I’ll never forget one of our family doctors growing up: Doctor Person.

    But… I’m guessing nominative determinism only goes so far: I have no desire to be a farmer, and I hate drinking out of straws!

    Reply

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