You may have seen jokes online about the J Name Theory, or the idea that boys with J Names are generally no good. But where did this phenomenon come from, and does it have any merit? Allison Rauch investigates.
ALLISON RAUCH, REPORTER: If you’re under a certain age and have spent any time on the internet, you may have heard of a curious phenomenon: that of the J-name.
Definitions vary. A quick search on reputable online source Urban Dictionary revealed an entry for “J name theory,” defined as “any guy who’s name starts with a J is complete crap and you shouldn’t date them.” “J guy” is defined as men having “traits like anger issues, cheating, ignoring, self centered, and show no emotions.”
Scrolling over to Tik Tok, I saw numerous videos such as “If his name starts with J, you better stay the hell away” and “a phrase I literally don’t recommend at all: boys whose names start with J.”
It seems, then, that the J name phenomenon is weirdly gendered: falling squarely on men who date women. I asked freshman Antonia Carlsson, who has dated a J-name man and lived to tell the tale, for a little more on this angle.
ANTONIA CARLSSON, J-NAME SURVIVOR: So this particular J-name is Jamie. um, he’s actually still a good friend of mine. I actually dated him during that stage of your teenage years where you don’t really know what dating is, and then we got together later on. If you got emotionally attached, yes, your heart would have been broken. He would, he would have seemed like a heartless person. I wouldn’t say he was emotionally unavailable. He’s just not the type to have a relationship.
RAUCH: Carlsson’s J-name seemed to check some of the boxes: noncommittal and a bit of a heartbreaker. But it seemed her experience overall wasn’t as bad as the tik toks are making it seem. Thinking more broad scale, I know multiple people who have had pretty positive experiences with J names. So where is this phenomenon coming from? I wanted to go to the source, so I rounded up a panel of J-name boys and asked them what they thought.
RAUCH: Have you heard, like, the stereotype that J-name boys are a*******, or they’ll like, break your heart?
JACOB JARDING, WEINBERG FRESHMAN + DOUBLE J-NAME: I haven’t. I would agree. In my personal experience, I would agree with the stereotype that, you know, they’re often like white, bro-ish guys. When I think of like, Jason or Jacob, you know, I think of like a white frat boy.
RAUCH: That’s Jacob Jarding, Weinberg freshman and double J-name. He, like many boys I’ve spoken to, was not aware of the stereotype until I introduced it to him. But it was interesting to me that he agreed with it regardless.
RAUCH: Do you think there’s like a difference between different J-names in terms of how bad?
JARDING: That’s a good question. I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s any J-name that’s too bad. I don’t think there’s a J-name like Chad out there. That’s a bad name.
RAUCH: Or at least to a certain extent. Overall though, Jarding seemed to take it in stride, a sense I noticed varied amongst my panelists.
RAUCH: What do you know about the J-name phenomenon?
JOHN JAMESON, SCHOOL OF COMM FRESHMAN + DOUBLE J NAME: Allegedly, allegedly, boys with J-names are apparently no good and cause some issues in relationships, which I feel is propaganda.
RAUCH: That’s John Jameson, School of Comm freshman and another double J-name. He’s a good friend of mine, and we’ve debated this topic before.
JAMESON: The evidence here seems circumstantial. Me personally as an unbiased source, I think J-names are just glowing people with amazing gifts to offer the world, and that really we should just be paying more attention to, like, are they a business major? Do they have a Saturdays are for the Boys flag? I mean, it’s an interesting argument about nominative determinism about whether or not your J-name will grow up to be an a******…
RAUCH: Jameson does make a good point: perhaps other personality indicators like major choice and dorm decor say more about how potentially terrible a boyfriend will be than the name his parents chose for him. However, he wasn’t offering as analytical of a view as I had hoped, and used the end of the interview to offer some propaganda of his own.
JAMESON: The anti-J-name propaganda is really going strong right now but i really don’t think it’s going to stop me or the other J-names from just white-boying the s*** out of the summer. End the stigma really, I, just, it’s been too long. For so long, my J-name brothers and sisters and siblings have suffered in the yoke of this oppressive nomenclature.
RAUCH: I rounded out my panel with Medill freshman Jimmy He, who, like Jarding, had been unaware of the stereotype.
JIMMY HE, MEDILL FRESHMAN + J NAME: I did not know about it until I was asked to interview about it. And then I researched it with my girlfriend. And we were like, “Oh, wow. okay.” And then I watched some Tik Toks, had to do some digging, investigative journalism and was like, “Damn, like, kind of hurt.” It was like, “avoid people — avoid dudes with J-names.” Like, “They’ll screw you over. Blah blah blah.” And I was like, “I feel so attacked!” I didn’t know this was a thing. And there’s a lot of guys out there with J-names. J-names are very common for guys.
RAUCH: He also brings up a good clue as to maybe why this phenomenon is so gendered: J-names are fairly common for guys. When asked to name examples of guy J-names, all my panelists rattled off several. But when I asked if they thought the J-name phenomenon could apply also to girls or other genders with J-names, they were hard-pressed to think of any J-names.
HE: I guess it’s more likely for girls to have negative experiences with guys, but J-name guys, there’s more of them. And I’m sure like, if one person posts a story, or something, a Tik Tok, and people would be like, “Oh, I had the same experience or have a similar experience,” and they’re gonna share and that is what continues to build up into the J-name phenomenon from what I’m guessing…
RAUCH: He’s analysis seems viable. The frequency of the J-name boy mixed with the often-complicated aspects of young people dating seems like it could be the perfect environment to create such a stereotype. But the J-name stereotype might not be completely negative. In my research I found other jokes saying J-name boys are hot, which could play into a sort of bad boy effect.
Overall, the stereotype seems to be of the same effect as “Geminis suck,” based off factors that are out of one’s control. And though there may be some truth to nominative determinism —
RAUCH: I would say that the Hanks brothers prove that nominative determinism is a thing. You have Colin Hanks and you have Chet Hanks.
RAUCH: Perhaps we should take more stock in other factors, before we judge a person’s character.
JAMESON: If you ignore enough red flags, you can’t just blame it on the J-name.
RAUCH: For WNUR News, I’m Allison Rauch.
