My oral surgeon, Dr. Small, shared his practice with Drs. Fear and Pickens. Of course, with a name like Fear you really have a lot of vocational options, don't you?
Maybe in some cases, since the name probably came from the profession of an anscestor of theirs, there is actually an inherited affinity for certain types of work.
Or maybe we just especially notice the cases where the name matches the profession. What about all the Bakers, Hunters, Cooks, and Fishers, e.g., who don't professionally bake, hunt, cook, or fish? Deans with no university or cathedral post, Marshalls with no particular ceremonial function, Smiths who don't work with hot metal, Sellers who aren't in sales? Anne Sexton avoided churches and wrote poetry instead. Samuel Barber's gift would have been wasted had he opted to cut hair for a living. And Richard Hooker was a priest and theologian, although I doubt his name meant the same thing then that it does to us today...
I've been told my own last name translates roughly as "furrier" (i.e., fur trapper/trader). And I'm a vegetarian! And allergic to most furry animals. So that would be a tough job for me. I did, however, take in a cat from the street, though I think she trapped me, and not the other way around.
I suppose if we still named people after their occupations, we'd have to have some new names today: Slacker, Programmer, Coldcall, Dealer, Footballer, Helpdesk, Burgerflipper... But then my generation would have to change their name 8 times in their lives, according to the statistic they were telling us back in college. Currently mine could be Gradstudent (if you say the "s" like "sh" it kinda sounds German)
or Verger (which is decidedly English).
