Differences in the Given Names of Good and Poor Readers

Abstract

Of the many researchers who have investigated the psychological importance of names (Dion, 1985; Garwood, 1976; Hargreaves, Coleman, & Sluckin, 1983; McDavid & Harari, 1966), we are especially interested in those working on the relationship between student names and the school performance of those students. Busse and Seraydarian (1978), for example, found significant correlations between students' first name desirability, as rated by peers, and their school readiness, IQ, and school achievement. Harari and McDavid (1973) required teachers to evaluate fifth-grade essays previously rated by researchers as of equal quality. Writers were identified only by first name. The essays of authors whose names were associated with positive stereotypes were evaluated as being of a higher quality. One interpretation of these findings is that teachers' stereotypic attitudes influence the performance of the children under their care (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). However, the question remains where these stereotypes come from and whether names are partly responsible for these differences. Possible factors differentiating the names include likability (Hargreaves, Colman, & Sluckin, 1983), commonality (Dion, 1985), traditionality (Dion, 1983b), and socio-economic status (Zweigenhaft, 1977). The present study derives from another investigation (Segalowitz & Wagner, 1989) on reading skills in grade 9 students, where we noticed anecdotally that individuals unfamiliar with the subjects or their names could nonetheless consistently differentiate the list of given names of the remedial group from that of the controls. One could not predict the group membership of a single name with accuracy, but each list as a block could be accurately assigned. METHOD