The Happiness hypothesis book is so good (or is revising my thesis so boring?) that I am constantly writing my blog on it.

 

According to the book, our decisions, even some major ones, can be based on unconscious reactions to trivial cues. For example, when a person called Dennis decides what to do for a career, he considers lawyer, doctor, and dentist, dentist, and dentist... Similarity in names can in this way influence our career choices. The same thing holds true for marriage. How often do couples have similar names  or at least similar initials? Jienan and I both start with J, and a couple we know well both start with H. Although the casual empiricism maybe subject to availability bias (we think something is more likely to happen if we can find ready examples), my guess is that this pattern also holds statistical analysis.

 

Of course, I wonder how such hypothesis applies to the chinese population. Are the two-letter ones more likely to marry two-letter ones? Or does it also operate through the phonetics? It will be an interesting research question in my opinion.

 

So the bottom line? If you want ur son to be a lawyer, name him Lawrence.