Remember that in many, many circumstances people will meet the name before they see the person. School class lists and job resumes are two of those places; and a prospective teacher’s or employer’s view of you is pretty important.
Names convey impressions. An aware person will realize (a) that a name represents the parents’ choice and not the individual’s and (b) that a name is just a name, an arbitrary label. But many people are influenced unconsciously by the impressions that names create, attributing traits to the person before they ever meet them.
I have read studies showing that people form strong associations with names, some positive and some negative, and those associations shape expectations. How can others’ expectations not influence people? Even if you don’t believe in the many forms of name magic, if your first-grade teacher unconsciously expects you to be dull or clever, agreeable or troublesome, boorish or charming, isn’t that likely to affect you?
What if your parent gives you a glamorous or sexy name and you can’t live up to it, so it seems to mock you? What if your parent gives you a horrible name and you can’t live it down? What if your parent gives you a cute little baby name, forgetting that you are going to spend most of your life as an adult? How hard do you have to work to sound professional when people don’t take you seriously because your name sounds like a nickname for a three-year-old?