hi uh for any of you that don't know me my name is lion uh and that's l i o n spelled exactly like the animal and I know that's a very very strange name and I would actually like to share with you the story of how I got that name so my father uh when he was born his parents gave him a name in Chinese that translated to Lion in English which is what they called him now they quickly realized how strange of a name was though and so they changed it to Peter which is what he still goes by today but he found out about this name change and decided lion is such a cool name when I have a son I'm going to name him lion and thus decades later when I was born that's how I got my name and that's really what I'm here to talk to you guys about today names specifically what I want to answer is do they matter does it make a difference what you get named do names have some sort of power over your life can it predict who you you marry where you live what kind of job you'll have even your political preferences uh but before we get into that I would like to First go over how we even get our names in the first place so the story I just told you the story of how I got my name is actually a fairly common one see the details may be slightly different or the name itself is probably less strange than lion but uh in essence I was named after a family member and that is the most common way children receive their names in the United States these days according to a Nationwide politic in last year 49% of all babies are given a name which one of their relatively recent ancestors have also had uh and that makes sense right I mean for religious or sentimental reasons we seem to love giving our kids the names of somebody who came before us um in fact about 20% of that 49% was named for religious reasons and of course in giving their children these names the parents will hope that they have wonderful and prosperous lives but they don't use these names to actively try and influence their kids' lives right but what about cases where their parents do do that see in 2014 there were over 500 reported births of children with the names Princeton Harvard Yale or Stanford now these are obvious Illusions to the prestigious universities which deriv their names uh over the past decade there have also been hundreds of princesses or winners as Parents try and imbue those qualities upon their children so does it work I mean that's the question we care about that's the one we're trying to answer today U and I know it may sound like a cop out but there are actually too few kids giving these kinds of names they have to live up to like Harvard or Stanford uh to draw any conclusive data from them see parents most parents will give their kids names based on how it sounds or most commonly just what the latest fat is going around they don't try and do things like this to their children um now whether you may know about it or not we've actually been trying to answer this question of does it make a difference for a very long time now uh in 1948 a study done at Harvard University has revealed that men with more common names like Mike are far more likely to pass their courses than males with less common names like Baran since then countless Studies have come out suggesting that names have some sort of predictive power on your lives they can tell where you'll live what kind of jobs you'll have your average income who you'll marry and most strangely uh whether or not you'll donate to certain Charities um a 2006 study done in England uh showed that pre-adolescent to adolescent males with very uncommon names were very girly names were far more likely to act out and misbehave than their counterparts with more common names and that same study also Al showed that girls with more traditionally girly names like Isabella for instance uh were more likely to gravitate towards Humanity's courses whereas their counterparts with more androgynous names were more likely to go into stem uh then of course we have the by far most Stark example of names influencing Our Lives race uh in 2004 professors Mar and Bertrand of the University of Chicago and Hill mineathon of Harvard University conducted a now famous experiment in which they sent resumés to various corporations based in both Chicago and Boston now these rums were identical with the one difference being the names on them one set had uh black sounding names Jamal and Lisha in this case and the other had white sounding names Emily and Greg and the results were both very conclusive and very disturbing as the white sounding resumés receed 50% more callbacks and interview opportunities than their black counterparts additionally since then uh professors Dane figlio of Northwestern University and Jee twenge of San Diego State University both did independent research showing that children with more black sounding names were far less likely to be chosen for advanced placement courses or honors courses than students with more white sounding names even if the person bearing that name was black so case closed then right what your name does matter as I've shown that both unusual names and racially typified names can have an enormous impact on our lives particularly in education except that really for the most part they don't matter at all money does see the one thing that holds true throughout every single one of these studies is that socioeconomic status and perceived socioeconomic status are far better indicators and far more powerful indicator ators than the name given to that child if a kid is born into a wealthy family he or she has a far greater likelihood of doing well in school graduating from college and getting a high-paying job than a child without those same advantages see the thing is names and socioeconomic status are often very closely linked together creating the illusion that names can have some sort of power over our lives when in fact they don't matter at all so does your were name matter in a broad sense yes it does um of course whatever name you give your child it will grow to become an integral part of his or her identity and around the edges sure what you give your what name your child Bears can have an impact on their lives but as a matter of make or break in life no what your name doesn't matter one bit thank [Applause] you