Does your name dictate who you are?

Hate to rain on their parade, but maybe "degree of masculinity" varies among parents. It's conceivable that the more masculine parents would give their daughters more masculine names, in the same way that they might be more likely to encourage her to play sports.

Thus, the name would have zero causal status; it would just reflect the greater masculinity of her parents, partially due to the effects of genes, which she would inherit in her turn.

But even with the same parents, who says they treat the children the same? Noted in the article:

'In ways we are only beginning to understand, children with different names but the exact same upbringing grow up to have remarkably different life outcomes,'

The parents too, in addition to teachers etc., might treat their "Isabella" more like a princess, and "Alex" more like a tomboy. I wonder, though, how much it really is about the name rather than just cultivating different interests in thier different children. Not everyone has to major in math or science, and pushing kids toward it unilaterally is IMO about as bad as steering them away from it.

I don't know how my own name fits here-- I thought when I was younger that it was masculine (It reminded me of a lady wrestler, but now I'm growing into it.), but many of my friends tell me it's very feminine. I started out as an English major, but now have masters degrees in geology and library and information science. I was a tomboy for sure. My parents (oilfield engineer and nurse) encouraged me to study anything I was interested in. Not a scientific critique, by any means, but don't you women all wonder about your own names?

The sooner humanity starts using alphanumeric codes for names, the better.

I always have been puzzled by the feeling that their was a far correlation between the sociocultural appealing of some first-names (Jessica, Cindy, Pamela vs. Marie-Jeanne, Gertrude, Marie-Pierre) and the stereotypical social behaviors. According to the majority/minority model in social psychology (c.f. the work of Lorenzi-Cioldi), a lot of factors are influencing women and men career choices. Women are less likely to choose men-stereotyped careers such as plumber, electrician because they are more on the group thinking side (aggregate) than men who consider themselves more as collection of independent individualities (collection). It will not surprise me if the degree of femininity culturally associated to names may influence the career choices which are also influenced by cultural stereotypes and social gender asymmetries.

What I don't understand is how valid it is to say that Grace is a less femme name than Elizabeth. They're both names given exclusively to girls unlike Alex.

Still, interesting study. Another thing to keep in mind is that twins might feel the need to differentiate from each other as an identity formation thing. So the twin in the pair who has the more feminine name becomes "the girlier one". Would that same pressure be there or be as strong if she was not part of a twin?