Ideophones

“The word ‘onomatopoeia’ is also an onomatopoeia because it’s derived from the sound produced when the word is spoken aloud.” – Ken M

Imagine ringing up a caveman. Utter astonishment on both ends of the line aside – what would you talk about? What could you even talk about? Without the accompanied pantomime, it may even be impossible to convey a message, made up of regular words, that is received in full fidelity in this situation. It’s hard to hold a conversation that transcends time and space solely through the medium of sound.

Certain sounds, however, are and will consist of similar sound waves regardless of whether they are perceived here and now or during the construction of the pyramids of Giza. Like sounds mimicking sounds from nature, like thunder or bird calls. You might instinctively use words like boom or chirp to try to convey the concepts that make these sounds. We call these words onomatopoeia – words that sound like what they describe. And maybe, just maybe, our caveman on the line would get it. Not because he knows English, but because these words carry meaning by resembling the sounds they stand for.

Fart jokes are considered low-hanging fruit to some. But in my opinion, their universality and timelessness are unmatched. From the Japanese in the Edo period to Mozart and Aristophanes, fart jokes are understood by everyone (at least humans) throughout all ages. Even our caveman, who is still on the phone, would most definitely get it if you made the sound.

Sound has power. It can bridge gaps that language sometimes can’t. But it also has its limits.

Take the Arecibo message, for instance—a transmission aimed at alien civilisations. It was sent via radio waves (a type of sound, broadly speaking), but what it carried was a visual message: a bitmap image encoded in binary. An alien would have to reconstruct it visually to make sense of it. Can we use sound to convey a visual message in other ways?

Wolfgang Kohler observed exactly this when he performed an experiment where he presented people with two figures, one jagged, one rounded, and two names: Takete and Baluba. Participants were asked to match the names to the shapes. A strong preference for calling the rounded shape Baluba and the jagged shape Takete was found. This seems to indicate that humans have to ability to convert a sound into a visual idea.

In 2001, a similar experiment was conducted with Tamil speakers in India. Tamil is rich in ideophones—words that evoke ideas through sound—and these are used regularly in everyday speech. While onomatopoeia typically involves one sound mimicking another (buzz, clang, whoosh), Tamil ideophones go further: sounds can evoke visuals, textures, even emotions.

In contrast, ideophones are relatively rare in most Western languages, though we do have a few: zigzag, twinkle, blob. These words don’t just describe—they sound like the thing they refer to, at least in some intuitive way. The shape of the letters may have something to do with this, but I ain’t no linguist.

Another ideophone is the conceptualisation of a whole personality when hearing a name. ‘Recently’ this has become a meme in the form of Karen. Karen is someone who ate a whole burger and decided not to like it, and now wants to speak to the manager for a refund. Everyone knows a person like this and many people think that the name Karen fits the bill.

But this concept isn’t completely new.

The name Kevin in Germany is associated with a low-achieving person, usually from a lower-class background. It’s a vicious cycle where Kevins, for whom this is not true, are discriminated against and are met with low expectations. It is possible for a Kevin to not be a ‘Kevin’ but the prophecy tends to fulfill itself for these reasons. This is called Kevinismus.

Do some names better suit particular faces than others? Do people have a preference?

To test this, I propose the following two surveys. In the first survey, participants are shown 10 faces—5 male and 5 female—of non-existent people, and are asked to come up with a name for each face. These names are then compiled into a list per face, as well as a list of all male and all female names to sample from later.

In the second survey, participants are shown the same 10 faces. Under each face is a list of 5 names: 4 are randomly sampled from the list of all names, and 1 is the most frequently given name for that face in the first survey.

If certain names really do “belong” to certain faces, we should see participants choosing the most frequent name more often than expected by chance.

I posted my survey on r/samplesize and r/namenerds, then prematurely celebrated Burns Night. A few hours later, I checked back in and saw that the form had already racked up over 200 responses! Eventually, the survey would reach an astonishing 1,108 responses before I closed it—perhaps not the most ideal task to pair with a whisky-fueled evening.

After cleaning the data, I quickly ran into a problem: Michael and Mark. Two different faces had these as their most frequent names. To avoid confusion—and potential statistical entanglements—I decided that each face would be assigned its most frequent unique name instead.

So, with that small adjustment made, let me introduce you to the names of the faces… and the results!

Honourable mention: Lily Guardian of the Forest. In this case, the data seems to confirm the hypothesis!

Honourable mentions: Dan glancer of surreal gallery, Skebep Bernardo. Here, the top choice came second.

Honourable mention: Baby Karen. Here, the fifth place was randomly sampled and overtook the top choice. This face has some elements commonly associated with ‘Karen’, mainly the hair-do, but not quite everything. Nevertheless, Karen was the third most frequent entry.

Honourable mention: Garret imposer of dreams. I messed up. I should’ve included the top mention in the second survey here, instead, I accidentally entered Michael instead… Nevertheless, Michael does very well in the second survey. One explanation as to why ‘Mark’ was chosen so many times is that this face may resemble Mark Cuban a little (maybe/probably I’m very wrong).

Honourable mentions: Jean Pierre commiter of war crimes, goodwill Jared Kushner. Here I went with John as the name among random samples. ‘John’ was outranked by ‘Robert’ and ‘Patrick’.

Honourable mentions: Supreme leader Annette of the Czech Republic, Mandy Microkrediet. ‘Michelle’ hit it out of the park.

Honourable mentions: Bob teller of dad jokes, generic chef #5. ‘Gordon’ was a big success. As the last honourable mention alludes to, this face may resemble chef Gordon Ramsey.

Honourable mention: Guptar, possessor of worldly riches. Here I went with ‘James’, which didn’t do so well. ‘Marcus’, the 4th name in the first survey seems to be more fitting.

Honourable mention: grandma Deborah conveyer of bed time tales. ‘Susan’ is an enormous success!

Honourable mention: Grandma Daisy Baker of cookies. Margaret matched up very well. Susan was a good second, and Karen made another appearance.

Bonus rounds

A whopping 89.1% ascribed the name Takete to the jagged shape, reaffirming the original hypothesis. 6.2% found that both names were equally fitting, and 4.7% found Maluma a better fit.

This is the image that all started it off for me. The fisherman hat, the weird glasses, long sunkissed hair, and inebriated gaze. He strikes me as a ‘the Dude’ type of personality, but I didn’t have a name. From some comments on Reddit, I gathered that he bears a resemblance to the professional boxers Jake and Logan Paul. Personally, I’ve settled on Steve.

1. Jake 39
2. Logan 35
3. Chris 23
4. Kyle 23
5. Steve 19

Honourable mentions: Geoff, but insists it’s pronounced phonetically, Master Leaf, Floombeard, Broderick, Slappy Whiskers, he calls himself Jagster, Shaggy from Scooby Doo, Broccolingus, Dude McBro the Alpha Surfer of Florida, Skane Skurr, Kyle’s midlife crisis, Lil Soggy, Jimbob, Child Boulder,

1. Damien 52
2. Kevin 29
3. Sid 17
4. Kyle 13
5. Damian 11

Honourable mentions: Shadowfax, Malachi Badson, Tony Pajamas, xX_69gamerjuice69_Xx, Helvetica, Smob, Discount Pennywise

Apparently Damian is a kid and son of the devil in movie Omen. Sid is also famously an evil kid in Toy Story.

1. Jason 24
2. Seth 23
3. James 20
4. Chris 16
5. Jack 16

6 people correctly found my real name: Rumpelstiltskin. Honourable mentions: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed”, 5/10, “…you […] actually look less real than the other people…”, X Æ 12 ẞ, Facey McFaceFace, Cletus

Thanks, everyone, for participating! The blog is still a work in progress, the story is a bit all over the place, and I probably abused a lot of jargon. The study could have been conducted better, as some pointed out. I agree. I didn’t expect to get enough responses for even one name to be repeated twice. It can luckily easily be set up again. Many seemed to enjoy filling out the names nevertheless. If you have any suggestions, either email me or shoot me a message on Reddit.