What your name really means and how it can affect your life

Is it a coincidence that a man with the surname Bolt is the fastest man alive? Kit Yates explains the link between what we call ourselves and what we do

An aptronym is a name which is particularly suited to its owner (GETTY IMAGES)

What do these three people have in common? Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, Margaret Court, the former world-number-one tennis player, and Thomas Crapper, the plumber and toilet designer who, contrary to popular belief, did not actually give an abbreviated form of his name to a slang word for defecation.

You can probably guess it straight away. Their names are all aptronyms – names which are particularly suited to their owners.

Possibly less well-known examples, but arguably even better fitting are the Jamaican cocaine trafficker Christopher Coke, the British judge Igor Judge, and the American columnist Marilyn vos Savant (who between 1985 and 1989 was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having the world’s highest IQ).