Engleski A - 2024. jesen, reading 5.

Now, for the author of the question, namely

William Shakespeare - in his 16th-century tragedy 'Romeo and Juliet' - it seemed of little importance what someone's name might mean because our names should not define who we are.

Of course, we need to take

consideration that the character of Juliet, who asks the question originally, is trying to justify her romantic interest in Romeo, who just happens to bear the last name of Juliet's family's sworn enemies.

Let us now fast-forward to a time five centuries later when researchers decided to pose the question of what influence our names had on us and,

Shakespeare and his quite progressive world views, actually found out the opposite.

Our names determine us much more than they

ever thought. Interestingly, independent research, conducted in 2013 and 2015 respectively, found that our names determined our lives to the extent of us opting for our careers, developing talents or having interests based on our first or last names.

Dubbed nominative determinism, this phenomenon explained why there was an inordinately large number of medical professionals with such names

Payne, Butcher or Medina, as well as lawyers named Lawrence or Laurence.

But the pressure our names put on us doesn’t stop there. According to the same research, even our talents and interests are affected. Therefore, someone like Usain Bolt had no other choice but to become the fastest man on the planet,

did the poet William Wordsworth have any say

choosing his profession.

Who

have guessed that our names play such a significant role in shaping who we are? Definitely not those who have named us.