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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

""Tim" v. "Tom""

29 Comments -

1 – 29 of 29
Blogger Dennis Mangan said...

Bizarre. No, you are not alone.

3/29/09, 8:28 PM

Anonymous David said...

Nobody ever heard of a Timcat.

3/29/09, 8:29 PM

Blogger agnostic said...

There's a loose association across languages in where the vowels are produced and what magnitude of stuff they suggest -- size, force, etc.

The vowel in "Tim" is pronounced high and front in the mouth, while the one in "Tom" is pronounced low and in back of the mouth. Highness and frontness connote small things (in size, force, etc.).

E.g. -- chip vs. chop.

3/29/09, 8:37 PM

Anonymous anony-mouse said...

Isn't 'Tim' the root of 'timid'?

3/29/09, 8:41 PM

OpenID ironrailsironweights said...

Differences become even more pronounced if you take the diminutives one step further to the "y" endings. "Tommy" is suitable for adult, non-wimpy men, e.g. Messrs. Dorsey, Hilfiger, Lee, Lee Jones and Thompson, as well as the fictional Mr. Atkins. And that's not to mention the gun.

It's a lot harder to think of an adult man going by "Timmy." About the only celebrity, so to speak, using that moniker is the retarded boy from South Park. Not much of a role model.

Peter

3/29/09, 8:41 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I believe this wiki has relevance to Steve's observation. I agree about Tim/Tom too.

3/29/09, 8:44 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tim Duncan is soft-spoken for an NBA power forward, but I might think differently if he was Rasheed Duncan.

3/29/09, 8:44 PM

Anonymous testing99 said...

Timothy Dalton?

Tim Teebo?

Tim Duncan?

I mean, come on.

3/29/09, 8:49 PM

Anonymous onetwothree said...

That's why I named my sons Bruce, Lance, and Julian.

3/29/09, 9:32 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe Mr. Geithner had a low-testosterone father who felt comfortable with (or even attracted to) the name Tim precisely because of its un-masculine connotations. And apples tending not to fall too far from their trees, this hypothetical dearth of testosterone could have been inherited by his son.

I just looked up Tim Geithner on the Wikipedia, and the above-mentioned hereditary dearth of testosterone instantly became less hypothetical to me.

"His father, Peter F. Geithner, is the director of the Asia program at the Ford Foundation in New York. During the early 1980s, Peter Geithner oversaw the Ford Foundation's microfinance programs in Indonesia being developed by S. Ann Dunham-Soetoro, President Barack Obama's mother, and they met in person at least once.

Ford foundation! Microfinance! Indonesia! Stanley Ann! I'm picturing birkenstocks, vegetarianism, the whole thing. I'm picturing Van Driessen from Beais and Butthead. Steve, there is a good possibility that your prejudice wasn't irrational at all. Another commenter here imagined Tim Duncan as Rasheed Duncan. If a black parent names her child Rasheed, she's sending a message out to the world. Perhaps so did Tim Duncan's dad, only less wittingly.

3/29/09, 9:46 PM

Blogger Truth said...

Yeah, but Tim gets
laid more

(hit the link Testing 99 and Svigor, it will help you score.)

3/29/09, 10:08 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's why I gave my sons solid masculine sounding hard names: Brutus, Trock, Mortgage and Clitoris.

Take THAT Uncle Tim!

3/29/09, 10:38 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Some relation ?

3/29/09, 10:39 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Synaesthesia is a field of study that might be fun. Random glitch or fundamental universal process?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia

3/29/09, 10:58 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with you. I definitely have that association with the name Tim, and I think a lot of people do. I think people do generally associate names and the sounds of names with types of people, traits, etc.

Whenever I read or hear about Increase Mather, I always think about and picture a Puritan guy with a huge dick, even though there's no record of that anywhere.

3/30/09, 2:36 AM

Anonymous toronto real estate said...

Are you suggesting that the Big Plan is perceived as bad because of Geithner's first name or did I miss something in your article?

It'd be interesting to compare first names and last names of candidates for the US president in the past and see whether this theory reflects the reality in brother terms..

Take care,
Elli

3/30/09, 3:50 AM

Anonymous Pete said...

Timmah!

(c'mon, no south park fans?)

3/30/09, 5:19 AM

Blogger Dennis Mangan said...

There's a phenomenon in which people with various names become overrepresented in areas that sound like their names. I wrote about it here.

"The authors found, for example, that women named Mildred were statistically more likely to live in Milwaukee than one would expect, likewise for women named Virginia living in Virginia Beach, men named Jack in Jacksonville, and Philip in Philadelphia. People whose surnames began "Cali" were much more likely to reside in California, with similar results for other names and other states.

Men and women whose first names begin with "Den", such as Dennis and Denise, are much more likely to be dentists than the general frequency of those names would indicate.

The authors found that men named George were much more likely to be geoscientists than one would expect."

My favorite aptronyms are Ruth Sanger and Robert Race, who wote "Blood Groups in Man".

So maybe Tims grow up to be abnormally timid (yes, same root) because they sense that they're supposed to.

3/30/09, 5:55 AM

Anonymous Robert said...

Tim was also a joke in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The guy guarding the gorge that they had to cross was Tim the Enchanter, with the joke being that "Tim" was such a weird name for such a fearsome character.

ARTHUR: Knights! Forward!
[boom boom boom boom BOOM boom boom boom boom]
What manner of man are you that can summon up fire without flint
or tinder?
TIM: I... am an enchanter.
ARTHUR: By what name are you known?
TIM: There are some who call me... Tim?

3/30/09, 6:15 AM

Anonymous ben tillman said...

It's the similarity between Tim/Timothy and timid.

Also, the most famous "Tim" in our culture is a very frail child nicknamed "Tiny Tim".

Anyway, your observation explains why it's funny when Monty Python's enchanter, after shooting fireballs across the terrain, says, "There are some who call me ... Tim".

3/30/09, 6:36 AM

Anonymous jimbo said...

Hmmm - I agree on "Tim", but what's interesting is that my name (well, my nickname that I go by - my real name is James) is "Jim". It's Almost the same, has the same vowel sound, etc., but seems much more masculine. As Jim Croce said, You don't mess around with Jim!

3/30/09, 6:44 AM

Anonymous Svigor said...

Funny, I thought I read somewhere (with the lead coming from here, if memory serves) that o sounds are girly and i sounds are more masculine.

3/30/09, 7:10 AM

Blogger Stopped Clock said...

I would say that the fictional characters Tiny Tim and Tom Thumb have helped associate both of the names with smallness in my mind, along with my experiences having met some rather small and thin people by those names. Even so, synesthesia definitely plays a role.

3/30/09, 7:24 AM

Anonymous dearieme said...

I think that your theory of Tims might divide the population in Ulster, which, to be fair, is easily done.

3/30/09, 7:35 AM

Anonymous tremendous T said...

Since I have the reverse associations, having known a bulky "Tim" who was a high school wrestler and a rather slight "Tom(my)" who was a talented artist, I can only think that the current association between name and image was intentionally built by some Republican attack machine.

How convenient that a sickly character from literature was named tiny Tim. Along comes the sallow, diminutive Tim Geithner whose manners likely suit the Asians he's lived among and the synergy draws other negative associations like a magnet. Geithner is small, soft spoken, cooperative rather than commanding. He probably also qualifies as a high IQ nerd type but the public is both enabled to punish Geithner for being a geek while simultaneously discrediting his accomplishments.

I say it was a brilliant counter attack on Obama's Brain Trust but I can't help feeling a little dirty every time I suppress a giggle when getting a glimpse of tiny Timmy Geithner in all those photos that must be deliberately bad.

Wasn't there also a tiny Tim who played the ukulele and sang "Tiptoe through the Tulips"?

3/30/09, 7:43 AM

Blogger jamlin said...

For more on sounds & meaning, check out Roy Blount Jr's book, Alphabet Juice, a genuinely hilarious and enlightening read for anyone interested in language. For a serious look at naming practices, including fads and cycles, see Steven Pinker's, The Stuff of Thought, who has a whole section on "Steve-ness."

3/30/09, 8:25 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nah, I think it's because Tim is the 1st syllable in Timid. Also Timmy was always falling in a well and getting pulled out by that damned dog. Maybe to inspire confidence, TG should start bringing a Collie to his press conferences.

3/30/09, 11:24 AM

Blogger Concerned said...

Jimbo,

I had the same thought about the name Jim. Tim does sound very little-boyish to me. But Jim sounds adult and masculine. Is it because of the percussive "J" sound in Jim?

3/30/09, 2:48 PM

Blogger Dutch Boy said...

The name Tim calls to my mind an image of a little boy and a collie. No sir, no Tims allowed in my household!

3/31/09, 9:28 AM

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