Having been born in the 80s, I've had more chances than I really would have liked to interact with kids whose parents gave them yuppie names -- you know, first names that used to be WASP surnames. These kids were, with maybe one or two exceptions, all incredible dicks.

Hmmmm. Makes me think of classical Hebrew and geomancy.

I hate my middle name because someone in grade school had the same name and I couldn't stand her. I have always been tempted to change it. Maybe someday.

Oh yes. Definitely.

I know that sometimes I will really like a name, and then I will meet someone I don't like who has that name, and then I can no longer think of that name in the same good light.

Well, there are -definite- trends in terms of naming, esp. when it comes to social class, education level, etc. So you might notice that all rich, over-educated snobs tend to have similar names, and if you hate rich, over-educated snobs, then you'll probably find a lot of people you hate have the same names.

There was a write-up about it in Freakonomics that was interesting.

Lottery winners tend to live in big cities. It's also said that Cancerians called Hanna who buy their tickets on a Wednesday have won more than others. However, if Hanna moves to the city and buys a ticket on Wednesday, she's not any luckier - she has an equal chance of winning as Billy Bob in the suburbs buying his ticket on a Sunday night.

The point is that these 'certain' names are more popular, and so in a given population, it's statistically more likely that the fucktards just happen to have those certain names.

That's the rational explanation. However, it is simply more fun to believe that having a certain name has a causal effect on a person's fucktardedness.

I don't know about the name-to-asshole association, but I have a name-to-cool association. All Sarah's I know (about 5) have red hair, blue eyes and are incredibly sweet and easy to be around.

We definitely associate certain attributes to a name as a culture--a lot of baby name books I've looked through (for writing) have mentioned this. And because of that association, there is also a cultural pressure on people named those names to "live up" to those expectations, and so they tend to. As I understand it, there is some theory regarding self-image in regards to name, and life choices in regard to name, and so on. But I'm not a psychologist, so I don't pay so much attention to that; but because I write, I have to be aware of how names influence a reader's perception of the character.

I am, however, vaguely annoyed, because every other person I've met with my name is not like me, and it puts a bad name on the name, I think (since most of them aren't that great of people). Ah well.

If I were to change my name, it would be to Axiem.

I actually, to express the latter, had one of my characters say "We all have two names: one which others call us, and one which we call ourselves"

The funny thing is that I will actually respond if someone calls me "Axiem" in real life. It's just that no one ever does :D

I must admit, I can't think of you as being named anything other than "bride" :D :D

There's a joke that teachers have problems naming their children, because of the sheer volume of kids they have known and the percentage of which are/were PAINS.

So true. Well also because even if it's not a kid who's a pain, being a teacher I know SO many kids that a lot of names have some kind of association.

oh, I know that! Friends and colleagues and nieces and nephews are popping out babies like crazy around me (must be my age I guess...) and sometimes I cannot believe the names they come up with (because of bad associations from my side).

I can't remember the English genealogy terms, but I think nieces and nephews are technically a type of cousin, so that kinda makes sense =)

Fiction writers pick names that will harmonize with their imaginary characters, using the same sort of observations.