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 thought.

Academics have found that your first name actually changes the way you look, a phenomenon dubbed ‘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 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 face than a man called ‘Tim’. That expectation eventually leads ‘Bobs’ to become more gregarious 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 objects have 'kiki' sounds.