Names are interesting. Sometimes they tell us much about the person who carries the name; at other times they can guide us to what he or she likes.
In Tanach names are certainly reflective of their bearers. For example, Esav has a name indicating his physical appearance (Genesis 25:) and is also called Edom (red), alluding to his violent tendencies, that he sheds blood. Moses's name reflected how the daughter of Pharaoh drew him from the Nile (Exodus 2:10). Noah's birth was accompanied by the aspiration that the newborn would provide comfort "from our work and from the toil of our hands, because of the ground which God cursed" (Genesis 5:29). There are countless such examples.
We learn from a verse that names "determine" (Berachot 7b) and the gemara gives us concrete examples, such as the meaning of Reuven and Ruth. The Sages certainly believed that names tell us much about people (Yoma 83b) and they conducted themselves in accordance with this belief.
RABBI Meir, Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosi were once on a journey. Rabbi Meir was always particular about the names of people, but Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosi never bothered about them. They once came to some place and looked for lodgings, which they found. They asked the innkeeper what was his name and he said: Kidor. Then said Rabbi Meir, I gather that he is an evil man, for it was said: (Deut. xxxii, 20) For they are a very forward generation (Kidor). Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosi entrusted to him their money, but Rabbi Meir did not. He hid it in the grave of that man's father. The innkeeper dreamed that some one said to him: Go and take the purse that is lying under that man's head. The next morning he told them about his dream. Said they to him: A dream of a Sabbath night has no meaning. Thereupon Rabbi Meir waited the whole day and took away his purse. The next morning they said to the innkeeper: Give us our purses. He answered that he knew nothing about them. Then Rabbi Meir said to them: Why didn't you pay any attention to the name? They answered:—Why didn't you call our attention to it, Master? He replied: I considered that one ought to be suspicious, but I did not consider it a certainty. Thereupon they asked the innkeeper to go with them to a shop where they noticed lentils in his beard. Whereupon they went to his wife and gave her this as a sign that he had ordered them to return the purses, and they received their purses. When he returned home he killed his wife...... From then on they too paid attention to names. Once they came to the house of a man named Balah, they did not enter the house, for they said: He must be an evil man, for it is written: (Ezek. xxiii, 43) Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries (Balah).
There is a great deal written on the roots of names in the higher spheres and the implications that this fact has on giving additional names to a critically ill person but that is not my focus here. Recently,a paper by Jones at al came across my desk that explains why "names determine". Here is the abstract:
From the perspective of implicit egotism people should gravitate toward others who resemble them because similar others activate people's positive, automatic associations about themselves. Four archival studies and 3 experiments supported this hypothesis. Studies 1-4 showed that people are disproportionately likely to marry others whose first or last names resemble their own. Studies 5-7 provided experimental support for implicit egotism. Participants were more attracted than usual to people (a) whose arbitrary experimental code numbers resembled their own birthday numbers, (b) whose surnames shared letters with their own surnames, and (c) whose jersey number had been paired, subliminally, with their own names. Discussion focuses on implications for implicit egotism, similarity, and interpersonal attraction.
R. Dessler wrote many years ago that all love is self love (Kuntress Hachesed, Michtav M’Eliahu vol. 1, pp. 32-51, 140-145). We develop love from investing ourselves in others and what we love in them is the love, giving and effort that we invested. From the psychological perspective, you might say that the Sages preceded him by millenia in this insight and in understanding that names that we carry shape how we think of ourselves, because names are so closely related to who we think we are that we shape ourselves to conform to our names . Jones merely offers experimental evidence to support this contention. It's simple. A name that suggests a quality, a character trait, or an occupation, may lead its bearer to develop the same qualities within himself or herself.
A kabbalist, of course, will interpret the associations reported by Jones differently. A kabbalist would say that the connection we see between names and choices are merely a reflection of the fact that things that have the same name stem from the same root. People, for example, tend to marry those with similar names because their names reflect something essential about their similarity, etc. Whichever way you explain it, this paper supports and explains the Sages belief that names "determine".
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