The most important aspect of personality affected by names is self-concept. Self-concept develops as children develop, and it is "learned" from the verbal and non-verbal messages significant people in children's lives send them. Parents are the most important message-senders, but, as children mature and become more and more independent, the messages of teachers, classmates, and other people all contribute to their developing concepts of self. In a sense, self-concept works as a kind of script for the way people act. If a boy has an image of himself as bad or as not capable of doing well in school, his behavior will probably reflect that image. He will tend to behave the way he thinks a "bad boy" is supposed to behave, or he will fail to learn as he should even though he might be quite intelligent.
A person't name has an impact on the process of building a self-concept because the name helps determine the messages other people send the child. It has been well established through research that certain names are generally considered desirable in our culture and have positive feelings associated with them. It is also well established that other names are looked upon as being undesirable and carry negative associations. For example, Curt, David, Diane, Jeff, Judy, and Linda are all considered desirable and positive, and Agatha, Edgar, Francis, Mabel, Marvin, and Phoebe all provoke the opposite reaction (See Chapter 10 of Anderson). Because of this, people unconsciously, but nevertheless effectively, send positive and negative messages in keeping with positive and negative images.
Most of the time these messages are very subtle, but sometimes they take the form of jokes, teasing, and even ridicule, especially within the child's peer group. At best, the joking and teasing can make children self-conscious about their names and reluctant to have any contact with other children out of fear of being ridiculed. At worst, especially when insensitive adults think the jokes and nicknames are funny and actually use them too, it can undermine what might otherwise be healthy personalities.
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