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When I was in 5th grade, my class was assigned a heritage project. I decided to focus on Italy. Both my parents were half Italian and my last name Cassata is of Sicilian origin. During my research, I learned that there is a Cassata cake, a traditional dessert from Sicily. I baked this sponge cake with its signature fruit juices and layers of ricotta cheese, and presented it to my class as part of my project.
Years later, it occurred to me that perhaps my ancestors were bakers or chefs, and perhaps they invented the Cassata cake, but I never took a deep dive to uncover whether cooking was in our blood. However, my first cousin Patrick Cassata has been a chef for decades. Over the years, he was a contestant on season 10 of Hell’s Kitchen and was the winner of Cutthroat Kitchen’s Season 11 in 2016.
“I found out about Cassata cake during culinary school from my chef instructor Chef Taglia,” he says.
When Patrick opened his own restaurant Eclectic, he put Cassata cake on the menu.
His biggest inspiration for becoming a chef was our grandfather Carl Cassata, who was first generation American. “Papa adored food. He would talk to me about how to eat certain foods with my front teeth, how to savor good moments in eating, and how to slice semolina bread so you don’t crush it,” says Patrick. “He had an impact on me and I gravitated towards that shared love affair with food.”
My cousin’s experience is an example of what is known as nominative determinism.
The term “nominative determinism” is a hypothesis that suggests people tend to gravitate towardsareas of work that fit their names. Think of a veterinarian named Dr. Barksdale, a band director named Mr. Bandman, and a bishop named Mr. Goodpaster (all real people).
Asserting that a person’s name dictates their career path is too strong of an association, according toBrett Pelham, PhD,professor of psychology at Montgomery College. However, he says our names do influence our lives in many ways.
“The way I have studied this is implicitegotism, which is the unconscious preference we seem to have for anything that resembles the self—one’s name included; it’s a powerful symbol of who we are,” Pelham says.
He has conducted several studies that looked at this topic and believes his best study used more than 80 million 1940 Census records to see if men gravitated toward careers that were their surnames.
For instance, men named Carpenter were overrepresented as carpenters, while men named Baker and Painter were also overrepresented in those occupations.
“This effect did not appear to be any kind of handed down effect in which sons just did what their dads did, and it was true independent of confounding variables such as race or education,” says Pelham. “For example, porters were probably less educated than foremen but that cannot account for the effects I saw.”
As far as this being a psychological connection, or the idea that people interpret their name as a “sign” or “reason” to work in a particular area, Pelham says his research shows that the effect is probably a simple matter of beingclassically conditionedto like one’s own name. “It’s anunconscious biasbut it’s not magical,” he says.
Based on his research, he believes theunconscious mindis probably much more powerful thanmost people assume. “And maybe we don’t truly have free will, at least not all the time.”
Surnames were used in Europe around the Middle Ages to help identify people as areas became more populated. While origins of surnames continue to be researched, people who study the history of words (etymologists) and those who trace the descent of families (genealogists) believe that a person’s occupation was one way surnames were derived.
For example, a smith refers to someone who makes something. Hence, a blacksmith often works with iron, so someone in this line of work may have taken on Smith as a surname and variation of blacksmith. In fact, Smith is the most common surname in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Other ways surnames were created may be due to nicknames based on physical appearance or personality traits, such as Little or Bigg or where people lived, such as Woods or Lake.
What Critics Say About Nominative Determinism
Pelham points out that critics of nominative determinism say the connections are real but spurious. Some critics point to chance and other factors as having an influence on career choice significantly more than surnames, such class, income, family history, and beyond.
Sutton says nominative determinism isn’t a theory that’s widely accepted within the field of onomastics.
“[There] isn’t a lot of strong data to support it—there are a few scattered studies, but none of them show a strong correlation between name and occupation,” she says. “So many surnames have nothing to do with occupation.”
While she says some research may show a slight correlation between a person’s name and their career choice, she stresses that correlation is not causation. To prove a causation, Sutton says robust studies that can show causation, in multiple languages, across multiple age groups, are needed.
The idea that people may interpret their name as a “sign” or “reason” to seek out a career path may have a subtle influence, she says, but adds that environmental factors can easily cancel out any idea of a pre-determined career path.
While it’s a nice “just-so” story, Sutton adds that “it’s about as scientifically valid as astrology.”
What It All Means
Looking into the origin of your last name can be an interesting endeavor that brings about understanding of your family lineage, where they lived, and their career choices. It may also get you thinking about your own career choice and whether your name led you there.
4 Sources
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Pelham, B. (2020). Implicit Egotism. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1134
Pelham, B., & Mauricio, C. (2015). When Tex and Tess Carpenter Build Houses in Texas: Moderators of Implicit Egotism.Self and Identity,14(6), 692–723.https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2015.1070745
Gaudio, A.Surnames: Resources in Local History and Genealogy. Library of Congress. Updated March 11, 2024.
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