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Your name influences your appearance as you age, according to new research
What’s in a name? It turns out, more than you might think. New research suggests that adults often develop facial features over time that match their names.
www.psypost.org
The name you’re given at birth might subtly shape your appearance as you grow older. Adults often look like their names, meaning people can match a face to a name more accurately than random guessing. But this isn’t true for children, which suggests that our faces grow into our names over time.
The idea that names might influence facial appearance draws from the broader concept of self-fulfilling prophecies—where expectations about a person can influence how they behave and, in this case, perhaps even how they look. If society has certain expectations of how someone named “John” or “Emma” should appear, it’s possible that over time, individuals might unconsciously shape their physical appearance to align with those expectations.
But how could someone shape their own facial features? The researchers suggest that this might happen both directly, through choices like hairstyle, glasses, and makeup, and indirectly, through life experiences that leave their mark—such as the way repeated smiling can create wrinkles over time.
However, it’s also possible that babies might be born with certain facial features that subconsciously influence parents to give them a name that “fits” their appearance.
Have you been affected by the namepill? Do you have a silly/nerdy/meme name?