I was asked an interesting question on Ask.fm earlier today :
"If you had a different name , would you be a different person?" (asked by an anoymous person , the irony !) , the response I gave was , yes , of course I would , the butterfly effect would surely have seen to that , but it really got me thinking.
Those of you that know my full name (no Petleg isn't my 'proper' name silly) will have to admit that it is unusual and according to a Google search , I am in fact the only person in the UK with my name (the other lady died a few years ago)but if my name had been more mainstream , would I have had a different personality ?
To start with , anything that relies on alphabetical order will have been different , at senior school we were sat in order of our surnames so I would've still been sat with the same people but in other situations where first names were taken in account , I might have ended up with a completely different set of friends and therefore , life experiences.
Another point , having an unusual name tends to make people remember you , leading again to different experiences .
At school I was surrounded by loads of Stevens, Pauls , Marks , Dannys , Claires ( okay different spellings of that but ...) , Sarahs , Lisas , almost as if the parents of the 70s had no imagination and now I am sure that classrooms are full of Joshuas , Georges , Ellas and Sophies !
My Brothers ended up with 'normal' names , my eldest Brother having a very 'Essex' name and 1 middle name each , but yes , me being different I've got 2 middle names as well (show off I know) but I've got to admit I like it!!
I am an artistic person & I do wonder if , had I been given a 'normal' name , would I have been less artistic ? Has my name influenced who I am or didn't it make much difference ? Did I feel I had to be unusual to match my name? All questions I will never know the answer to , but I do like to feel that standing out a bit with my name has made me not want to be a sheep at all , to go my own way & do my own thing .
Do people live up to stereotypical names ? Taking some 'Essex' names , how annoying must it be to be called Tracy , Debbie , Sharon , Wayne , Steve , Barry & having the negative associations that go with those names ? Are all Essex girls called Tracy as thick as they are portrayed ? No of course they are not , but I bet some of them wish their parents had chosen a different name for them.
And what of the 'wacky' names ? In the past only given by drug addled rock stars to their off spring , but more recently introduced into everyday lives , how are these children going to get on when they are older ?
Would you like a lawyer called Moonbeam or a doctor called Ace? or because of the way they will be treated in life , are they more likely to be artists , writers , dancers or actors?
Only time will tell but the old peoples homes of the future will have less Marys , Alberts and Joyces and a lot more Britneys , Judes and Tylers that's for sure xxx
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