Eigenprint Name: what the roots of your name can tell you about your family and your choices

What does Eigenprint Name look at?

Eigenprint Name is the lens I use for the documented roots of your given name and family name. If you were ever told what your name means and nobody could say where the meaning came from, Eigenprint Name gives you a fact you can look up. For each name I find the language it came from, the word it was built on and how it reached your family.

I’m Robert Russell, a career and identity coach, and I run QuantumThrive Hub in South Africa. I build an artefact by hand for each client who is deciding about work, a business or studies. The artefact rests on four lenses of you. Together the four lenses are your Eigenprint, the full picture of you that I build. Eigenprint Name is one of the four, and it is part of the comprehensive build.

For each name I use dictionaries and books on the history of surnames and first names, which you can check yourself. I then give you a question to ask your family, such as what the people who carried this name did for a living.

What Eigenprint Name rests on, and what it is for

Eigenprint Name rests on the study of where words come from. A dictionary or a name history either shows a root or it does not, and the root is written down for you to read. I think that makes Eigenprint Name the most concrete of the four lenses.

I keep two things separate: the root, and whatever you take from it. The root tells you where a word came from. People are named for a grandparent, a saint, a song or a family habit, and rarely for the meaning of the word. So I hand you the root as a fact, and you test the question I give you.

You test the question against your own life. If it helps you see your family or your own choices more clearly, you keep it as one part of your Eigenprint. If it shows you nothing, you set it aside and decide with the other lenses. Where a name has no root anyone can trace, or scholars still dispute it, I say so and leave the gap open.

An example: a family choosing a degree

Take a school leaver who has three weeks before applications close, and a parent who has asked what they want to study more than once. The school leaver says they do not know, and the conversation ends the same way each time.

Suppose the family surname traces to a word for a trade, such as cooper, a maker of barrels. Nobody in the family has made a barrel for generations, so the root tells them nothing about a degree. It does give them a way into a talk that is not about the degree. They can ask what the people in their family did for work, and whether those people chose it.

At the kitchen table, each of them lists three relatives and what each relative did for a living. Next to each name they write whether that person chose the work or ended up in it. Then they ask each other why that person stayed.

The school leaver may find that some of the people they admire ended up in their work by accident, and stayed because it turned out to suit them. That can take pressure off their own choice. The parent hears how the school leaver sees the family’s work. The talk moves from what to study to people they both know, and they have a calmer place to start from.

If their lists show them nothing, they set the root aside and decide with the other three lenses.

Where Eigenprint Name sits in your Eigenprint

An Eigenprint is made of four lenses. Here is each lens and what it describes.

• Eigenprint Type shows how you take in information, decide and handle pressure.
• Eigenprint Path is a reading worked out from your birth date. The date gives a number, and each number stands for a theme in how you go about things, such as bringing order to a mess.
• Eigenprint Sky is a second reading from the same date, taken from where the date falls in a yearly cycle of twelve parts. Sky describes what you are drawn to, such as working with people or building things.
• Eigenprint Name is the subject of this post. With Eigenprint Name, you see where your given name and family name come from.

Do not rely on one lens. You can rely less on a pattern that one lens shows than on one that several lenses show. When they agree, you have the strongest sign that a pattern is real.

How you start

The free Eigenprint Type Assessment is where you start. You create an account, answer a short questionnaire in one go and see your Eigenprint Type before you pay anything. Eigenprint Name is part of the comprehensive build only, so you see your Type first and decide about a build afterwards.

Questions people ask

Does Eigenprint Name predict your future?

No, and I make no claim about your future. Eigenprint Name looks up where your names come from, and you decide whether that helps you understand your choices.

Does the meaning of your name shape who you are?

No. Most people were named for reasons that have nothing to do with the meaning of the word. The root is a fact about the name, and what it says about your family is a question for you to test.

What happens if your name has no clear root?

I tell you so. Some names have no root anyone can trace, and some have a root that scholars dispute. I leave the gap open and do not make up a meaning to fill it.

If you run your own business

You may see your surname on the invoice, the van or the door. Trace it, then ask what the people who carried it before you did for a living. Some of them may also have worked for themselves, and you can ask what that work gave them and what was hard about it.

If you are choosing your own degree

Write down three relatives and what each did for a living, and note whether each one chose the work. You own the list, and you can check it against what your surname traces to.

What Eigenprint Name leaves open

Eigenprint Name is one lens. To decide about work, a business or studies, you also need to know how you work day to day. You need to know which theme comes back across your life and what tends to draw you in. Then you need a next step.

The focused build combines Eigenprint Type, Path and Sky, and gives you your three best directions, each scored, with where you are now on five measures, and a twelve-month roadmap. The comprehensive build adds Eigenprint Name and the timing work, your Personal Year and your Midheaven, which needs both your place of birth and your time of birth. I build the timing work into the roadmap so the roadmap gives you dates and not only lengths of time, and I add an estimate of what each step costs. Both builds include a walkthrough session with me at no charge, and you can book other coaching sessions on their own.

See the focused build or the comprehensive build. To start with the free part, create an account and take the free Eigenprint Type Assessment.