talkmagic.co.uk

I would like to share with you a great addition to cold-reading that I sometimes use. It also makes everything sound more credible.

1) If you know a persons name you can use it as a trigger to get their attention.
"AH! Your name is Chris which comes from Christ. This shows that you are very spiritual"

2) The meaning of the name.
"I see your name is Joshua which means "God shall save". This shows me that you have guidence from above"

3) Origin of the name.
"Your name is the name of an ancient greek God who was known for his love of people"

4) Famous namesakes.

"Your name is Charles which reminds me of Charles Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens, and Charles Darwin. What they all had in common was..........!

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There are many ways of using this. Meantime I have given four examples but I will add more a little later.
Ronny

Your name is Dick, erm......

Hey Heckler! Why the negativity?

Facetious, rather than negitive mate, no offense meant.

An interesting idea, especially since most names have positive meanings and people identify strongly with their names. But a few cautions come to mind:

A lot of people know the meaning or derivation of their names, and if they don't know offhand it's easy to look them up later. So if you're claiming to know the derivation, you'd better get it right.

Some names' derivations are potentially insulting or upsetting. Calvin = "bald" and Cecilia = "blind", for example. For many such names, there are fairly widespread fake but nice meanings (e.g. Cecilia can be passed off as coming from caelum, "sky, heaven"), so if challenged you can say there's some disagreement about the derivation, but this is the one you prefer.

Be cautious when it comes to names with religious derivations: "Christopher means Christ-bearer, which shows you're a spiritual person." As a non-Christian... well, I wouldn't be exactly offended by a statement like that, but it would annoy me. Especially as an opening remark from a stranger -- I'd be worried you're some sort of evangelical about to preach at me. Putting people on the defensive is never a good beginning.

Robbie is correct on that front and then you have all those wonderful non-English or "ethnic" names out there; I'd be hellbent to figure out most of the Islamic names without intense study let alone Asian and traditional African "tribal" names which are all very common here in the States. Even being able to rely on the Webster "Psychometry from A-Z" formula can prove difficult at times because of names spelling nuances; a Reader may assume someone being called "Steven" is spelled just that way and not "Stephan" and yet, both are pronounced the same way here in the States and similarly, both have contrasts in meaning when it comes to the formula you've suggested.

I appreciate the concept but believe it best as a bit of incidental trivia vs. an ice-breaker.

Of course, the ones you don't know the derivation of, you can go down the "famous people with your name" tack as mentioned. (Wouldn't work for me because I can never think of any famous people! But I daresay most of you could.)

And in the event of an odd name that you can't get a handle on, you can always not mention anything...