What's in a name?: LinkedIn have compared users names with their occupations and found a number of correlations. |
What's in a name? Well a lot more than you would think if recent statistics are anything to go by. If your name is Deborah or Peter then chances are you're a CEO. Parents - if you'd like an athlete in the family then best to name your child Ryan, Matt or Jessica. Looking for someone in law enforcement? Simply call on a Billy, Troy or Rodney. The statistics have been compiled by online professional networking site LinkedIn, who looked at more than 100 million profiles and correlated users' names with their occupations. The analysis did turn up some rather more odd correlations, for example, male CEOs in the US are more likely to have four letter names such as Jack, Bill or Fred. Similarly sales professionals are called shorter names like Chip or Todd while engineers and the names of people who work in restaurants are usually longer. Female engineers are very likely to be named Kiran, while Thierry is the most prevalent name in restaurant and food services worldwide. In comparison with male CEOs, females tend to use their whole name and they are usually longer names with two or three syllables like Sally Cynthia or Carolyn. Study researcher Frank Nuessel, a professor of classical and modern languages at the University of Louisville, said of the findings to MSNBC: 'Typically hypocorisms, the shorter form of a given name, are used in intimate situations as a nickname or a term of endearment. 'It’s possible that sales professionals in the U.S. and male CEOs around the world use these shortened versions of their name as a way to be more approachable and accessible to potential clients.' (Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
名字中蘊藏著什么玄機呢? 如果最近的研究數據值得參考的話,名字的意義會比你想象的大得多。 如果你的名字叫黛博拉或皮特,那么你多半是一位總裁。 父母們,聽好了。如果你們希望家中能出一個運動員,那么你們最好給自己的孩子起名為萊恩、馬特或杰西卡。如果你們希望孩子將來進入執法部門,那就給他起名為比利、特洛伊或羅德尼。 商務社交網站LinkedIn收集了相關數據,瀏覽了1億多份個人資料,并把用戶的名字和他們的職業關聯起來。 經過分析,確實發現了一些相當奇妙的聯系,例如美國男性總裁的名字很多都是由四個字母組成的,例如杰克(Jack)、比爾(Bill)或弗雷德(Fred)。 同樣,專業銷售人員的名字也較短,如趣普或托德,而工程師和餐館工作人員的名字則一般較長。 女性工程師多叫凱蘭,而世界各地從事餐飲業工作的人最常見的名字是席利。 和男性總裁相比而言,女性總裁一般會用自己的全名,而且她們的名字通常較長,包含兩到三個音節,如薩利?辛西婭或卡羅琳。 研究人員弗蘭克?紐賽爾在對微軟全國廣播公司宣告這一發現時說:“通常名字的縮略形式會被用于親密的場合,如昵稱或愛稱。”紐賽爾是路易斯維爾大學古代和現代語言學的教授。 他說,“美國及世界其他地方的銷售人員和男性總裁之所以會采用名字的縮略形式,或許是為了更平易近人,能夠得到更多潛在客戶。” 相關閱讀 (中國日報網英語點津 陳丹妮 編輯:馮明惠) |
Vocabulary: go by (something): 遵循或依照(某事) chances are...: 很有可能 prevalent: that exists or is very common at a particular time or in a particular place(流行的;普遍存在的;盛行的) hypocorism: 名字的縮稱,簡稱,昵稱 |