Current work: Med duo 2/nonfiction
Listening to: Karine Polwart
Reading: Rachel Hore, The Memory Garden
Interesting report on people’s perception of names in terms of success, attractiveness and luck by psychologist Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire. I quote:
"Attractive female names tended to be soft-sounding and end with the 'ee' sound, whereas the sexiest male names are short and much harder sounding," he said, adding that names with royal links are seen as successful or clever.
Top five most attractive female names are Sophie, Rachel, Olivia, Karen and Katie; top five male names are Ryan, James, Jack, Chris, Michael. (Limited sample, though – they had to pick from 20 pre-selected names.)
See more here
So which male and female name do you find most attractive? My current hero and heroine are Katrina and Rhys - neither of which really fit. (Of the list above, have only used the top two female and the third male - can't really use the fourth as is son's name and it would feel very awkward to use his name as a hero.)
Plan for today: bit more of book, then into city with kids to see Enchanted. (Also have minor admin stuff to do today and I think my new book might be on the shelves in Smith’s, so will be taking the camera with me because I’m sad enough to be excited about publication day... despite this being my 30th M&B.)
3 comments:
I agree with the general idea - especially for male names. So often male nick names are powerful too.
A Crispin does not conjure up the same mental picture for me as s Chris. Tarquin vs Jack.
My current favs? Julianna and Kyle.
ps. Enchanted is brilliant - loved it, and embarrased Mr Ray-Anne by coming out of the cinema singing the theme song.. hehehe.
I have a real thing for men's names beginning with J. I don't think there are any that I haven't used. I've started giving them surnames that begin with J and using those instead.
Ray-anne, I usually come out the cinema weeping -- no matter what the film is like. The dd has inherited this embarrassing trait.
Ray-Anne - nice names :o) And we loved Enchanted, too.
Liz - mm, it's difficult to find good new ones when you get to a certain point, isn't it? Especially with Medicals, where I have a lot of secondaries, I've had to keep a database of names so I don't overuse any.
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