Does Your Face Match Your Name?
I was teaching at a conference a few months ago, and during a break a woman approached me and said, “I listen to your podcast. You don’t look anything like you sound.”
I didn’t know if that was good or bad, so I just let it go and stuffed my face with a cookie. But it got me to wondering: Do I need to work harder at looking like a podcaster?
What else does my face not live up to?
According to researchers with more time on their hands than I have, at least my face lives up to my name. That’s right. According to people with a combination of PhDs and government grants to look into these things, our faces change over time to march our names.
According to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we tend to alter our appearance to suit our names. Apparently, what kept these researchers up at night was trying to figure out if parents named a baby based on what they thought fit the infant’s appearance, or if that kid grew up and changed his appearance over time to fall in line with social stereotypes associated with his name.
You should give your son a biblical name.
David? Joshua?
I suggest Theophilus.
Why Theophilus?
He is theophilus baby I’ve ever seen.
Sorry. Bad joke. If junior running around your house is named Theophilus, I’m sure he’s a wonderful kid. He’ll probably grow up to cure cancer.
Back to the research. In the study, they asked 9- to 10-year-olds to match faces to names. They asked adults to do the same. Both groups correctly matched adult faces to their corresponding names. However, they failed at matching children’s faces and names.
But wait! There’s more! They programmed a computer to analyze a large database of faces. The computer recognized that the faces of adults with the same name were more similar to each other than the faces of adults with different names. The computer tried to do the same thing with kids’ faces, but the computer did not find any similarities in the faces of kids with the same names.
Their conclusion? People alter their appearance over time to match their names. So now I’ve got something else to keep me up at night. What exactly does a Lynn look like? How much does a nose job cost?
I’m not buying it (neither the nose job nor the research), at least not completely. I don’t see how we can change our appearances to match our names. Besides, who determines what a Jennifer looks like? Or a Ralph?
But we can change our appearance to match our attitude and our character. The King James word for this is countenance. Your countenance looks different based on your mood. Men, you can just look at your wife and tell what mood she’s in, right? She doesn’t even have to say a word, and you know you forgot to take out the trash, you left the kids at church (again), or you did something boneheaded. Her countenance tells you that the next words out of your mouth need to be chosen very carefully.
Our emotions come out in our faces.
- When you’re happy, you smile. Bingo. Your countenance changes.
- When you’re sad, your expression goes south. Your countenance changes.
This is true for any of us, but for the follower of Christ, this can go so much deeper than the fickleness of our emotions. And this takes us back to the research study. Our faces should match our names—but not names like Leroy or Mary Frances. Instead, your face—your expression and countenance—ought to match these names you’ve been given:
- Friend of Jesus (John 15:14).
- Heir of God (Rom. 8:17)
- New creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).
- Child of God (1 John 3:1)
The name you were given at birth is still your name, but in Christ your titles has definitely changed! Let the joy and peace you have in Christ be seen in your face!
I still don’t know what a Lynn is supposed to look like, but that’s OK. I want to look like Jesus.
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