It's all in a name, at least when it comes to your salary. That according to the Yahoo! Shine article "Can Your First Name Boost Your Salary." The Ladders, an online job-matching site completed the study that found executives with shorter names earn more money. It analyzed six million career professionals and found people with first names longer than five letters lose out on about $3,600 in salary every year, per letter. My name is six letters long, so accordingly I will lose out on $144,000 over a 40 year career. Perhaps I should just change my name to Shell or She.
This salary discrepancy is no problem for those with long names that can be shortened. If you are a Stephen you should think about going by the name Steve, at least professionally. However, what about those with long names that have no shortened version? Barney is such a name and it is also a name that I would not consider to be extremely professional. The shortened version of Oliver, Ollie is also not very professional. Gertrude is a name with a shortened version that is also more than five letters, Gertie. There are names with weird alternate spellings that may complicate the findings of this study. Jason fits in well with the five letter rule, but add a fancy 'y' in there for Jayson and you have money loss.
There was one exception to the corporate name rule. Of all the names studied, only one did not see wage increases with the use of a nick name. That name is Lawrence. I can see why this name breaks the rule. Larry is not an incredible professional name. Sure, I'll trust a Larry but the name still makes me think of Larry the Cable Guy. Although I'm sure the cable man is an extraordinarily interesting person, he won't make as much as Lawrence or Rob.
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