Choosing a name for a child is often a headache for parents, but new research shows that picking well could be more crucial than previously 1 thought.

为孩子取名字对于父母而言通常都是件头疼事，但是新研究发现，取个好名字比你原想的还要重要。

Academics have found that your first name actually changes the way you look, a phenomenon dubbed 2 ' The Dorian Gray ' effect, after Oscar Wilde's eponymous hero.

Just as Gray's wicked deeds were etched onto the facial features of his portrait, so the cultural stereotypes 3 linked to a name come to be written on the faces of their bearers.

For example someone called ' Bob ' is expected by society to have a rounder more jovial 4 face than a man called ' Tim '. That expectation eventually leads ' Bobs ' to become more gregarious 5 and jolly, while ' Tims ' may appear more pinched and reserved.

The connection may be linked to the ' bouba-kiki ' effect which suggests that across languages, more bulbous smoother objects are labelled with rounded ' bouba ' sounds, while thinner spikier 6 objects have ' kiki ' sounds.

Likewise ' Winstons ' are perceived as fairly glum 7, while ' Marys ' are considered to be moral, both traits which may alter countenance 8, and over time, change face shape.

And a woman named ' Katherine ' is considered to be more serious and dependable than a girl named ' Bonnie '. Such cultural expectations may encourage ' Katherines ' to be more studious and academic, which could gradually influence the development of facial muscles, perhaps through increased concentration.

" Prior research has shown there are cultural stereotypes attached to names, including how someone should look," said lead author Dr Yonat Zwebner, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

" For instance, people are more likely to imagine a person named Bob to have a rounder face than a person named Tim. We believe these stereotypes can, over time, affect people's facial appearance."