What’s in a Name?

Would you think about this before naming your kid?

clipped from blogs.wsj.com In this week’s print column, I analyze a study that links people’s initials to surprising trends. For example, major league baseball players with first or last initial K were more likely than average to strike out; and business graduate students with initials C or D had lower grades, on average earlier research exploring this link between our names and our taste — in brand names, in hometowns (Louis prefers St. Louis, Jack likes Jacksonville), and in street names. clipped from blog.newsweek.com People like their names so much that they unconsciously opt for things that begin with their initials. Even weirder, they gravitate toward things that begin with their initials even when those things are undesirable, like bad grades or a baseball strikeout. The pattern held for grades, too. Using 15 years (1990–2004) of grade point averages for business school grads, they found that students whose names began with C or D earned lower GPAs than those whose names began with A or B. clipped from papers.ssrn.com Moniker Maladies: When Names Sabotage Success