Winner and Loser Lane were brothers. Both pursued very different careers in crime.
One, after graduating from Lafayette College, became a policeman, then was promoted to detective, and eventually to sergeant.
The other was a full-time crook, with over 31 arrests before being jailed for 2 years.
Which brother pursued which life? The answer is surprisingly not what you would assume: Loser was the winner and Winner was the loser.
However, it would be a lie to say that the boys' names did not affect them at all throughout their life paths. While Loser was able to overcome the negative connotations that followed with his name, the experience was difficult. When he was young, Loser didn't know he had a "bad" name. But he soon found out that his name was not something to boast when he became "Lou" because his teachers and friends couldn't bring themselves to call him by his given name.
While the father who named these boys has been criticized for such questionable behavior, the idea behind it all is intriguing. A Freakonomics excerpt by Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner poses a question to this very subject: "Though [the father] got his boys mixed up, did he have the right idea—is naming destiny? What kind of signal does a child's name send to the world?"
This question reminds me of a discussion we had in American Studies Class about how a name connotes a specific social class. Some of our discussion revolved around job interviews: If two applicants have the same resume and credentials but one is named Catherine and the other Shaniqua, who would get the job? We thought it would undoubtably be Catherine. Names like Catherine, Emily, and Sarah are typically "high-end names" while names like names like Shaniqua, Roshanda and LaQueesha are more "racially defined" names typically associated with lower class.
While Loser and Winner fit these stereotypes, they were able to live lives that opposed their expected structure. What does that mean about names, social class, and life outcome? Are they or aren't they related?
I think that the story is super interesting and was unbelievable at first. But I think that names definitely do define or at least allude to different social class. In this day and age when computers and technology are the extent of our communication face-to-face interactions become less common, forcing people to make judgments off of names. Especially with online interviews/job application employers are forced to judge and choose potential employees based on names. There are so many instances where people conjure up images just based on store names, people's names, and products names. So I do think that names do allude to specific social classes in the American class system.
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