Freakonomics Radio

How Much Does Your Name Matter?

A kid’s name can tell us something about his parents — their race, social standing, even their politics. But is your name really your destiny?

Stephen J. Dubner/ Freakonomics Radio
GEN
Published in
9 min readAug 9, 2019

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A collage of “Hello My Name Is” stickers with names such as: Damon, Sharon, Tom, Jon, Vivian, Travis, and Kristal.
Credit Travis Wise/CC BY 2.0

It’s hard to measure something like the effect of a name. But Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt has spent his…

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Stephen J. Dubner/ Freakonomics Radio
GEN
Writer for

Stephen J. Dubner is co-author of the Freakonomics books and host of Freakonomics Radio.