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You know, aptronyms… like when a gynecologist is named Seymour Bush
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Chris Moneymaker, aptronym and Poker Champion
Are you familiar with the term aptronym? It’s not recognized by my spell check, nor does it pop up in daily conversation. But if you’ve ever had landscaping work done by someone named Plant or noted a local librarian named Booker, you’ve encountered an aptronym.
According to Britannica, an aptronym is the term applied when a name is especially suited to the profession of its owner. Nominative determinism is another description of this phenomenon, and the medical profession seems particularly prone.
Among the doctors encountered during a quick web search were a chiropractor named Feeley, an urologist named Cockburn, a podiatrist named Smellsey, and a dentist named Tuthaker.
In an article posted on the Daily Camera, reporter Brittany Anas focused just on her Boulder County, Colorado, beat and found a hamburger joint owner named Berger; Oak Thorne, founder of an ecological foundation; rock-climbing instructor Chris Wall; atmospheric specialist Betsy Weatherhead; and theater and arts director Tony Tallent.
Notable, high-profile aptronyms belong to world champion surfer Layne Beachley, education secretary Margaret Spellings, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt and former NASCAR driver Lake Speed.
Britannica credits American newspaper columnist Franklin P. Adams with coining the term, but it is Rhode Island psychologist Lewis Lipsitt who’s elbow-deep in the research.
“When people have names that suggest their occupations, or preoccupations,” Lipsitt told the Camera, “I really think there is something to it.”
The professor has collected more than 1,000 examples, with a Mr. Hawkes from the Audubon Society and a Professor Fidler from a university music department among them.
I’m off to the Maryland General Assembly website – if there were ever a state to have an elected official named Dew Nothing or I. M. Lyon it is surely the one in which I live.
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