This Woman Can “Taste” Names

Image via Julie McDowall/Twitter

Synesthesia is a rare condition that happens when one of the senses is understood by another sense or senses. For Julie McDowall, she can “taste” words and recently she encouraged people to ask her the flavor of their names.

Her tweet flickered the curiosity of many and it quickly went viral as people wanted to know what their names taste like. Her synesthesia is not only limited to identifying flavors. “I put ‘taste’ in inverted commas,” she shared. “90% is taste. Some sensations or images get through.”

The thread led to interesting answers. According to McDowall, Aaron is a stale chocolate bar, Charlotte is like raspberry lollipop and Keith is minty chewing gum. Unfortunately not all monikers have taste. There are some that can be described through an object or feeling, like her name, Julie, is a watery eyeball and Barbara is a colored plastic ring. Scroll down to see if your name is there.