Hoo boy, you’ve managed to combine two of my nerdiest special interests in one post. I am SO. SORRY. for the fire hose of information that’s about to come spewing out of my brain…
A few years ago, I did a deep dive into the underlying Jungian theory of cognitive functions that the MBTI model is based on. I’ll try not to get too overwhelmingly technical (HA!), but essentially, Jung posits that everyone has four core functions - Feeling, Thinking, Sensing, and iNtuition - and that these functions are further divided by whether they are Internally or Externally oriented, for a total of eight cognitive functions: [name_f]Fe[/name_f] vs. Fi, Te vs. [name_m]Ti[/name_m], Se vs. [name_u]Si[/name_u], and Ne vs. Ni (where the capital letter is the function and the lowercase e or i is the orientation of the function).
Jung also grouped these functions into categories: Sensing and iNtuition are Perceiving functions (because they determine how you take in data), while Thinking and Feeling are Judging functions (because they process the collected data and “decide” what to do with it). Each individual uses only four of the eight total functions, and they are ordered by preference (ease and frequency of use) from dominant to inferior. [name_m]Briggs[/name_m] and Myers further developed the theory to create 16 personality types based on which functions an individual uses and in what order.
To use myself as an example, my dominant function is Fi (internal Feeling), followed by Ne (external iNtuition), then [name_u]Si[/name_u] (internal Sensing), and finally Te (external Thinking). According to the Myers-[name_m]Briggs[/name_m] theory, this means that I am an INFP: I, because my dominant function is Internally oriented, or Introverted; NF, because my top two functions are Feeling and iNtuition; and P, because the first externally-oriented function in my stack is iNtuition, one of the Perceiving functions.
As you can see from the above example, the underlying theory is much more complex than the pop-psychology version that most of us are familiar with. Because of that internal complexity - and because of the way MBTI as a system is often divorced from this underlying Jungian structure - the online questionnaires and personality tests are often inaccurate. And they are typically inaccurate in the same way - they assume that each pair of letters is its own polarity - E or I, N or S, T or F, P or J. According to the cognitive function model, everyone has an N, S, T, and F function; two of those functions will be E and two will be I; two will be J and two will be P.
The final four-letter type was originally shorthand for this much longer and more complicated description of a given individual’s cognition. Essentially, the questionnaires are testing for the letters themselves, rather than the functions they represent. This leads to lots of mistyping and confusion about type - for example, people will say, “I’m an INFP some of the time and other times I’m an INFJ,” because they’re only one letter different; however, these two types actually do not share any functions. This fact tends to really muddy the waters when looking at trends by MBTI type, because while some individuals are aware of the cognitive theory and have arrived at their type by analyzing their functions, most people are going by their questionnaire results.
ALL THIS TO SAY: While I don’t see naming style necessarily being consistent across self-reported MBTI type, I do notice similar trends among individuals who share the same underlying cognitive functions!
For example:
People who have [name_u]Si[/name_u] (internal Sensing) as one of their highest functions are generally traditionalists. They often favor vintage names, names that evoke a specific era of the past, and names that are nostalgic for them and associated with fond memories. These individuals are also the most likely to choose names that honor family members. This is all because [name_u]Si[/name_u] is a backward-looking function that uses the past as a framework to understand the present and anticipate the future.
I am restraining myself from writing a whole post on each of the other seven functions because I don’t want to COMPLETELY derail the thread (at least not any more than I already have).
TL;DR - Myers-[name_m]Briggs[/name_m] typology is based on the Jungian theory of cognitive functions, and I have noticed that certain dominant and auxiliary functions seem to correspond with certain naming trends and preferences.