Interview with Norma J. Watts | Sound Authors Radio

January 13, 2009

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors! My next guest on the show is Norma J. Watts. She’s the author of The Art of Baby Nameology, Explore the Deeper Meaning of Names for your Baby. But its more exciting than just that, she’s also an expert in saying what names mean. So lets start out, what do you think my name means; Kent Gustavson?

Norma J. Watts: Oh hi Kent.

Dr. Kent: How are you?

Norma J. Watts: Oh I’m good. I just work with the first name. I found that there are some studies that they run the whole name. They study the middle name, the last name, all of it and with women they drive you crazy; they get married several times and their maiden name and this name. I’ve just based the Art of Nameology on the first name because of the point is that when we meet someone, we just know their first name and that says a lot about us so that is what this basic study is all about. And your name Kent is there’s a hidden seven in the beginning of your name if we add the K and the E together so this tells me that you’re either spiritual or scientific but this is hidden, not everybody knows but you have an inner search for knowledge. Having to do with scientific or spiritual. A Kent could be a person who studies the bible or a Kabala or possibly you study the stock market or a handicap horse racing, you may be into because there’s a science in that. But somebody with the name Kent or with the first two letters together, there’s a hidden step in there, so there’s something you like to study.

Dr. Kent: I’m certainly a little obsessed with not horse racing, but definitely interested in the bible and science and all sorts of things. What does it mean to take a name that parents gave a child and then find deeper meaning within it? How does that work exactly?

Norma J. Watts: When we’re born, our names are drawn to us subconsciously at birth and that name has the energy of our personality. So of course it reveals our personality really. To a person like me and to people who study names like I do we have a little bit more inside knowledge of what that persons about.

Dr. Kent: I have to say I’ve seen a lot of information since that there is a lot to a name. My fiancé, her name is Katarina and when I first heard the name I thought what a beautiful name and then I thought she was a more beautiful person. Not that I didn’t think she was beautiful before but there’s a lot to that; people say oh does it fit with my last name and they’re always thinking about names and you can almost in your head think, oh what would a Kent look like, or what would a Norma J. Watts look like? Talk about perception in the world of certain names.

Norma J. Watts: For example, Katarina, by the way when you said that, I saw she has two T’s in her name, right? And that sort of matches up with your name. Our names can be compatible with other names and the T means dynamic, busy lifestyle. She’s probably always, even when her plate is full, she’s taking on more and usually getting it all done. She’s probably very dynamic.

Dr. Kent: Indeed.

Norma J. Watts: So it does tell what we’re like.

Dr. Kent: Are there people who, I always hear this? People that change their names or for example, my mother, her name is Cynthia and as a kid she was called Cindy. After about 40 years or 45 years of that, she said listen, my name is now Cynthia, nobody calls me Cindy anymore.

Norma J. Watts: I’m seeing a lot of that because I have a blog on Amazon and it’s in a new age section and it’s called Our Names Reveal Our Personalities, I’ll Prove It. I have over 1100 posts and I tell people just tell me your first name and I’ll tell you what it means and invariably people that didn’t like their birth name, when I tell them what it means they actually like it again. To feel that about your birth name and even if you go to a nickname, you end up, you can’t get away from your birth name, you just can’t.

Dr. Kent: Here’s another hard question for you. My father works with undernourished children and abused children and he once worked with kids called Whiskey and Brandy, they were twins. What do you do when you’re named Whiskey from birth?

Norma J. Watts: Oh for heavens sake! That’s sad. Well, I’m thinking that is still their destiny name. The letters in the name give us a definite description of that person’s personality. It’s interesting when you say Whiskey and Brandy; they both have a Y at the end and Y means a lot of freedom. These kids, we’re still going to be like our heredity; there’s heredity in everything and even in nameology when I look at the letters in the name and what the parents’ names are, we inherit certain letters from our parents time and time again. We’ll see that our children have the same letters or similar letters and we want to put those letters in their name and they’re going to inherit certain qualities no matter what.

Dr. Kent: That’s fascinating, my fathers name is Ed and mine is Kent and it does kind of make sense.

Norma J. Watts: Yes, you’ve got his E.

Dr. Kent: What about your name? How do you analyze your own name?

Norma J. Watts: Well I never liked my name, Norma. I thought gosh, that’s such an old name. I really used to be embarrassed about it but since I’ve become a nameologist, I love my name. I love what each letter means. Now, there’s a choice. I could either live on the positive side of my letters or on the negative side of my letters. There’s no bad name, there’s no such thing as a bad name because every letter has a positive and negative side to it and its up to us, whether we’re going to live on the positive or negative side of our letters.

Dr. Kent: One of my favorite songs in history is A Boy Named Sue, where of course the father named his son Sue and the kid is angry, its an angry song and at the end the father says well do whatever you want to me but the reason I named you Sue is because I knew I wasn’t going to be there and that it would make you tough.

Norma J. Watts: The funny song, its interesting that the name Sue, the U is a funny letter. It has a sense of humor. It’s ruled by three in that it’s the natural comedian so that was a really great song in that way.

Dr. Kent: As a nameologist, what do you do everyday?

Norma J. Watts: I have a regular day job that I cant quit and I even have a joke about that on my profile; don’t give up your day job and it has a picture of me at my workplace with my nametag and everything but at night I blog and I keep up a nameology blog and it kind of keeps the spark going, keeps things going and makes me happy.

Dr. Kent: Okay, so how did you get into it? What’s the history of nameology? When you talked about numbers, what do those mean?

Norma J. Watts: I actually as an astrologer, a student of astrology since I was 12 years old, I believe that all metaphysical studies are based on astrology. So it was sort of a branch off of it and it was just sort of natural for me to understand it. I understand all the metaphysical sciences. Its sort of like if you can play piano you can easily learn how to play other instruments because if you have that basic understanding, you understand others as well. It’s the same thing, so that’s why when I picked up a book on it, I right away understood.

There’s two different types of numerology that are studied here in the United States and the west studied the pathagarist [assumed spelling] method which I do as well. It just connected with it right away, I understood it. So I use the Greek mathematician pathagarist method and this method has been around for almost 3,000 years. It’s still hard for me to understand why people don’t see this and why they don’t know our names are as plain as the nose on our face and yet nobody knows that you can tell a lot about a person just by knowing their first name.

Dr. Kent: Right, it’s just like people say there’s that famous phrase, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but as someone in the book industry, you really can.

Norma J. Watts: Yes, I beg to differ!

Dr. Kent: Speaking of your book cover, it’s a beautiful book. It’s been put out by source books and its one of so many baby name books but what’s great about this book is it’s almost like the names have more than just okay, where is this from or whatever. It talks about the strength of the individual and all of that. Did you just go about one name after the other? You just started working?

Norma J. Watts: Oh you mean the name definition section? About 70% of the book is name definitions. I wanted to do the work for the reader so you don’t have to try to mash out what does this name mean. I kind of did that for people. You can look up your own name, you can look up the names of your children or what you’d like to have and it gives a little idea. I had to go with the system, a scientific mathematical system so it could’ve been very repetitive. Most books like this are too repetitive so I really had to dice it up. There’s looking at the power number, the secret numbers, there’s hidden numbers; I had to really tailor and custom fit every single name. I spent a lot of time with this; it took a lot of years to do.

Dr. Kent: It’s a fun book, even for someone who’s not expecting a child. I was paging through it and you can look at every single letter and of course you always flock to your own name first. You read the section and it talks about if the name starts with this letter. It’s a fascinating book. How’s this been doing for you?

Norma J. Watts: It’s been moving along but this type of study hasn’t quite taken off yet. People don’t know, they’re like what is this? It’s a different kind of animal so I think it’s still an unknown thing, just a few people here and there really know about it and its kind of still hasn’t taken off.

Dr. Kent: It’s still catching on.

Norma J. Watts: I hope!

Dr. Kent: When parents name the child, is there something unconscious going on? My parents always say well we named you; my whole name is Kent Samuel Gustavson and they say we named you that because it sounded good together, the rhythm worked. Certain parents then name their children Apple or in the public eye. It’s so interesting how different celebrities are from normal folks, in certain communities people make up names. Talk about all the different kind of names.

Norma J. Watts: Again, our names they vibrate a certain personality so when that parent is thinking, gee, I think I’ll name my child apple, when they’re saying the word apple, those two P’s, they’re seven rule letters. The P has a knowledgeable, commanding first impression and this is the feeling that the mother or whoever is naming the child feels in that child that they’re carrying. They feel that vibration, that personality. Oftentimes, parents will have a name all picked out and right after that baby’s born, just before they put the name on the birth certificate they think, you know what, this looks more like an Ashley, or this is more like a Karen, I think we should go with this. Oftentimes they will change the name and go with what they feel; that vibration of the person’s personality comes out and that’s what they end up using.

Dr. Kent: How about names like my middle name, which is Samuel. How much do you credit to for that one it means in Hebrew one who fears God? How much do you look at etymology? How much does that interest you?

Norma J. Watts: It doesn’t at all. It’s a whole different thing; its apples to oranges. I don’t even look at the middle or last name. I kind of take it into consideration; sometimes a person’s middle or last name I can see some of that in their personality, but the very first name. Nobody calls you Samuel, everybody calls you Kent. That’s the name that I see that I dissect and that I look at and is the nose on your face. To me, this is you. You have a hidden 3 for example too. Some hidden literary talent. Not everybody knows, you probably have some books in the works. There’s some things I can pick out of your name that say this is what this person is about and it helps me know, should I warm up to this person. If there’s a salesperson knocking on the door, a Doris with the O first vowel, oh they’ve got to have kids or pets and I can sell my products with that in mind, you know? So it’s good for everything, not just naming children; you can also get to know the other person that you’re dealing with.

Dr. Kent: What are some popular names these days?

Norma J. Watts: These days I’m seeing a lot of Peyton and Vincent are coming back. I think its funny but recently I’ve been seeing Hunter for a girl and Gunner for a boy and I’m wondering if Governor Palin didn’t have some influence there. Then Ashley is still popular, Jaden, Noah, Taylor and Madison. People put names together like BethAnn and Julissa. They’re putting names together now, especially with the girls.

Dr. Kent: Right and a lot of the older names are kind of coming back.

Norma J. Watts: Yes the vintage names, they’re coming back and I love it.

Dr. Kent: Like Bella and things like that.

Norma J. Watts: Yeah, I think it’s fantastic.

Dr. Kent: Okay so let’s say you do name a child one thing and in college my nickname was Rusty. Does that mean anything about a personality?

Norma J. Watts: Ah-Hah! Yes it does. See it’s interesting, you didn’t lose that T. You had it in Kent and then in Rusty. Rusty has that U first vowel. You were more funny in college, you had a sense of humor, you were probably more talkative and you ruled communications that maybe you did some kind of writing or a lot of writing. The R is kind of I don’t want to say you’re a bully, but it’s a very strong presence. Its very what do you call it? Oh you could have been intimidating to other people with the R up front. And the Y, you needed a lot of freedom. I bet you were pretty wild actually with a name like that.

Dr. Kent: Yeah a little bit.

Norma J. Watts: I’m seeing that.

Dr. Kent: Let’s talk about some stars because I think that’s fun for everybody. There are so many names out there that lately its almost like they want to shock the world by naming their children, but maybe that’s not the case, maybe its what they’re feeling.

Norma J. Watts: Well if you think about it, their child is going to be very special like nobody else’s child because they are a child of a celebrity. So right away that kind of makes sense to me that Apple, or Scout, or they come up with Ireland, Suri, Shiloh, and speaking of those names, I made sure I drove my publisher crazy at the very last minute saying oh, we got to get Suri in there and we got to get… I kept going back and putting celebrity’s children’s names in that book.

So if you look in the book, you’re going to see the name Apple, Suri, Shiloh and some others. You also see a lot of multi-cultural or Russian type names, Hungarian. I had a Japanese girl tell me the other day, you know what? My mothers name is in here. I wanted to have a little bit of everything in there. I just wanted to be different.

Dr. Kent: This has been a fun discussion chatting with Norma J. Watts. She’s the author of The Art of Baby Nameology and I really appreciate chatting with you and we’ll stay in touch.

Norma J. Watts: Thank you Kent.

Dr. Kent: My next guest on the show is a New York Times Bestselling author of the Wasted Vigil, a novel by Nadeem Aslam and it’s the winner of the Curiama [assumed spelling] Prize as well. So come on back for that in just one minute.

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