Why All Seagulls Look Like They Were Named Emma
I often find it funny when I get a birth announcement and they say that the baby is named something like, “Dennis.” While I never look at a grown man and think, “He doesn’t look like a Dennis,” I do pause for a moment and wonder what a baby Dennis might look like. I just can’t picture that.
They say that people carry a lot of baggage, but so do words. They have perceptions that are associated with them. They’ve been associated with things in the past that seem to color them today. My wife told me once that she’d never let us name one of our kids Jake because she had known a lot of Jakes that were class clowns when she was teaching.
But did you know that people respond to words, often based on how they sound? For instance, ask any comedian and they’ll tell you that words that have the “k” sound in them are funny words that will get a laugh. Ironically, those class clowns named Jake, had that “k” sound in their names. If those same boys had been named Elmer or Fred, would they have been perceived differently, or perhaps would that have even been more of a wall flower? I would venture to say yes.
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The German author of Gestalt Psychology, Wolfgang Köhler believed that words communicated meanings far beyond their definition, simply based on how they sounded when pronounced. To test his theory, he presented a group of subjects with two different shapes (seen below) and asked them which one represented the nonsense word, “takete” and which one represented “maluma.”
The large majority of the respondents agreed that “malumas” were soft, round shapes, like the one on the left, while “taketes” were sharp, jagged shapes, like the one on the right.
But why should you care? Because the sound of a word carries almost as much meaning as the definition of that word. Think about the implication that that could have on your business. Let’s say you’re opening a day spa that’s supposed to be relaxing and soothing, but you name it “Tekete.” Might people assume that your massages aren’t relaxing because the word sounds sharp? When considering your company name, your product names, or even your domain name, be sure to think about the sounds of the words that you choose and reflect on whether or not they line up with the feeling that you want your customers to have when they hear your name. Hope that helps.