Nominative Determinism or Aptronyms

Barry Mason is a famed British stone sculptor. Brian Mole is Head of Security, University of Sheffi eld. The weather presenter for the BBC’s East Midlands Today news broadcast is Sara Blizzard. The World Bank country director for China is David Dollar. Gene Shearer is a Biologist with the U.S. National Institute of Health at Trinity College Dublin. Iain Atack, is a lecturer in international peace studies. Franklin P. Adams, a famous newspaper columnist, called them ‘aptronyms’. James Taranto, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal calls the phenomenon ‘eponymy’. Tom Stoppard (in his play, Jumpers ) calls it ‘cognomen syndrome’. In its ‘Frontiers’ column, the British magazine New Scientist called it ‘nominative determinism’. And, Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post calls them ‘aptonyms’.