Tyler Cowen’s father wanted to name him Tyrone; my father was keen on calling me Trajan (at the time my parents were living around the corner from Trajan’s Forum in Rome…) But do kids with unusual names really suffer as much as their mothers might imagine? It seems not.
“Researchers have studied men with cross-gender names like Leslie,” Dr. Evans explained. “They haven’t found anything negative — no psychological or social problems — or any correlations with either masculinity or effeminacy. But they have found one major positive factor: a better sense of self-control. It’s not that you fight more, but that you learn how to let stuff roll off your back.”
Mind you, years ago I can remember hearing about a Mrs Warmwater in Portsmouth who, despite pleading from doctors and nurses, insisted upon calling her newly-arrived son Luke.
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