names.jpg

Bad news for people with difficult-to-pronounce names. The latest research shows that people's credibility can easily be swayed based on how tough it is to pronounce their names.
...the researchers asked undergraduate volunteers to rate the pronounceability of real names from 18 countries, and then used these ratings to generate a set of difficult to pronounce names, such as Yevgeni Dherzhinsky, and a set of easy names, such as Putali Angami.
The participants were asked to rate statements like "'Giraffes are the only mammals that cannot jump,' Yevgeni Dherzhinsky said". The findings showed they were more likely to believe the statement if the name associated with it was easy to pronounce.

In summary, you might want to start using a shorter monicker if it takes others at least half an hour just to figure out how to spell your real name.


[PLOS One]