Flora Gardner runs a flower shop; Dr. Bird's an ornithologist. Lewis Lipsitt has long pondered whether there's a connection
When a local newspaper article mentioned Flora Gardner of Hill House Herb Gardens and Flower Shoppe, some readers might have chuckled about the relationship between her name and vocation and turned the page.
Lewis Lipsitt (left), professor emeritus of psychology, clipped and filed it away as he has done so many times with examples of people who appear aptly named.
After he first used an example like Gardner three decades ago to illustrate to future psychology researchers that some apparent relationships do not have a cause and are only coincidental, Lipsitt began to question whether his example was valid.
At the time he told his students the fact that Dr. Fish founded the state’s Oceanographic Institute; that Mr. Rolls was the director of the state’s AAA organization; and that Mr. Hawkes worked at the Audubon Society didn’t mean that there was any psychological reason for their choice of livelihood.
Yet, Lipsitt asked himself after the class, could your interests be influenced by having grown up hearing and saying your name?
"I decided shortly thereafter there might be something to it," said Lipsitt. "Something is at work subconsciously when you have a repeated reminder."
So it was that Lipsitt’s hobby of collecting names sprung from his vocation; it has grown with the contributions of many strangers.
Over the years, word spread about Lipsitt’s unusual collection through students and the media, and he began to receive examples from people he had never met. His mail included pages torn from telephone directories listing dentists named Fangman; handwritten notes on yellow-lined paper about optometrists named Blinder; and printouts from medical alumni directories referencing Dr. Blades, a surgeon.
Producers at a Canadian radio station who interviewed Lipsitt about his hobby, called to let him know they had to reschedule another guest because of his segment: Dr. Bird the ornithologist was booked for another night. "We sent him home because we thought he would think we were making fun of him," the producer told Lipsitt.
Lipsitt does not know how many names he has, but they fill three files and include:
William Liddle, a pediatrician in Fredericksburg, Va., and G.A. Little, a pediatrician in Hanover, N.H.; Robert Croker, professor of environmental history at the University of New Hampshire, who was quoted in a newspaper article about tree frogs; Margaret Smith Court, a tennis player who won 62 championship titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles between 1960 and 1975. (Court was Margaret’s married name; she wed after she began her tennis career.)
Also, Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox, co-authors of a book about animal behavior; Cramer J. Stiff, an undertaker in York, Pa.; Thomas Saving, a Texas A&M economist; Marc Payeur, a collection’s officer for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
And then there’s Chris Roach, an inspector for a pest-control company in Sterling, Va.; C. Martin Lawyer III, an attorney in Tampa, Fla.; Rebecca Dobash and Russell Dobash, editors of "Rethinking Violence Against Women"; and John A. Mutter, president of the Providence County Kennel Club in 1998.
Whether people believe the name-vocation relationship is causal or coincidence, said Lipsitt, the subject certainly warrants "an appropriate scientific test."
After all, astrologers make money based on the belief that there is a correlation between different incidental facts about a person — date of birth, day of the week, month — and their character and life events, he said.
And there may be links between a person’s name and his or her success or failure in a job. Using a car as an example, said Lipsitt, the Chevy Nova never sold well in Spanish-speaking countries because "no va" means "no go."
Would a person named Miracle have a better chance at being hired for a public relations position than any other candidate? "We have to pursue the hypothesis," Lippsitt says.
If Lipsitt still taught the psychology research class today he would continue to use the name example "but I’d tell students the congruence of two events can lead you to hypothesize a causal relationship — but it does not confirm it."