The best bit: They recursively reference the paper to provide proof that too many parents choose the same common names:
> For instance, a parent might anticipate the name “Kate” would be a pleasantly traditional yet unique name with only moderate popularity. They would be wrong [6].
It goes beyond that. Three of the authors have east-asian last names.
I understand that many people from east asia have a given name in their native language and an english sounding name that they often choose themselves.
If those three authors did chose their english names, then they too fall into the same category of parents who chose a variation of Katherine.
(Para)bosons, (para)fermions, quons and other beasts in the menagerie of particle statistics, by O.W. Greenberg, D.M Greenberger, T.V. Greenbergest https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9306225 [Wally Greenberg told me that T.V. stands for 'the very']
I'm reminded of the 'Tom Formal' that took place whilst I was at university:
> Last night, February 3rd 2011, saw 100 students and fellows all sharing the name of Tom, gather together in a record-breaking charity event in Sidney Sussex dining hall. [...] For £20, Cambridge students with the name "Tom, Thomas, Tommy (or another legitimate variation)" were able to attend a black-tie, three-course formal dinner
"we create a model which is not only tractable and clean, but also perfectly captures the real world. We then extend our investigation with numerical experiments, as well as analysis of large language model tools."
Whether family names are more differentiated depends on where you live.
The USA has a wide variety, but there are also places like Vietnam where only a handful of family names are in common use and more than 30% of people are Nguyens.
I think that makes sense both from an organizational and cultural perspective. Context usually supplies whatever information is needed for personal names so less disambiguation is required, and they are used much more so some simplicity is useful/natural consequence of human nature. Family names are used less frequently and with less context and frankly is how people distinguish their group from others. So yeah, think it checks out.
> Because this paper was written in 2024, we include an obligatory section involving generative AI and LLMs.
> Another ERA is the Mayfly Parenthood Assumption, in which all parents perish immediately upon naming their child, which makes the math substantially easier.
> It is well-known that parents are always in complete agreement over the name they would prefer to pick for their newborn child.
I do think the best names are ones with the most meaning.
You name a kid Isaac, you could be naming him after Isaac Newton. It puts something on to him.
If you name a kid William, maybe you hope he will be the next Shakespeare.
Simply by naming someone something, you imprint something on to them. The history and power of a culture.
Yet for this very reason, especially when people see the culture as dark, they choose unique names, names that say you can be who you want to be.
Though I think I still prefer old names, looking at names of people who have done something, and then hoping to do something similar.
I think this is kind of why a convert to an orthodox Christianity, from some heterodoxy, or atheism, or from the religion of the “infadels” takes a new name in baptism. They hope to live up to whomever. If you take the name Theresa at baptism with a sense of obligation to love the lowly like Mother Theresa and so on.
>LEVITT: Yeah, one of the most predictable patterns when it comes to names is that almost every name that becomes popular starts out as a high-class name or a high-education name. So in these California data we had we could see the education level of the parents. And even the names that eventually become the, quote, “trashiest” kinds of names, so the Tiffanys and the Brittanys, and I’ll probably get myself in trouble, and the Caitlyns and things like that start at the top of the income distribution, and over the course of 20 or 30 or 40 years they migrate their way down, becoming more and more popular among the less-educated set.
What you see with Mabel in the paper is a fad name coming back. Hipsters bring it back, then upper class parents with hipster pretentions popularize it, then it spreads to the general population. The trick is to pick a name that sounds outdated or obscure but will come into popularity within the child's lifetime. If you wanted to do that now, you would pick something like Linda or Iris.
I would also be interested to see analysis on syllable counts. When will the boomer 2 syllable names will come back into style?
I worked with a Harrison (born in the 70s) who commented that the name had a bathtub curve - most people with the name were either really old or really young (he knew more Harrisons in his toddler's preschool class than his own age).
Compare with a name like Michael ( https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Michael ), which while it has fallen out of favor with newer names, is still the most common male name in the population - though the average age is 48 years.
A paper by Jinseok Kim, Jenna Kim, and Jinmo Kim: "Effect of Chinese characters on machine learning for Chinese author name disambiguation: A counterfactual evaluation" . Obviously the authors don't have Chinese names but I would imagine personally having names that need disambiguating might spur one's interest in this research area. (And they do mention in the paper that it's also an issue for Korean names.)
Yeah, it's interesting how the practice of only listing surnames works well in cultures where people have long and distinct surnames (and often common first names) and is just silly in cultures where surnames are short and common and most of the information content of the name is in the first name.
> The above model contains several Extremely Reasonable Assumptions (ERAs). [...] Another ERA is
the Mayfly Parenthood Assumption, in which all parents perish immediately upon naming their child, which
makes the math substantially easier."
Readit News
For people unfamiliar with common English names, all of the authors have first names similar to or derived from Katherine.
> For instance, a parent might anticipate the name “Kate” would be a pleasantly traditional yet unique name with only moderate popularity. They would be wrong [6].
Reference 6 is the paper.
> Simon Shindler contributed significantly to the aesthetic of Figure 7, but could not be named an author for obvious reasons.
I understand that many people from east asia have a given name in their native language and an english sounding name that they often choose themselves.
If those three authors did chose their english names, then they too fall into the same category of parents who chose a variation of Katherine.
A Few Goodmen: Surname-Sharing Economist Authors, by Goodman, Goodman, Goodman, and Goodman https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/joshuagoodman/files/goodma...
(Para)bosons, (para)fermions, quons and other beasts in the menagerie of particle statistics, by O.W. Greenberg, D.M Greenberger, T.V. Greenbergest https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9306225 [Wally Greenberg told me that T.V. stands for 'the very']
Also note that TFA is a 1 April posting.
C. Limb, R. Limb, C. Limb, D. Limb "Nominative determinism in hospital medicine: Can our surnames influence our choice of career, and even specialty?"
https://publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1308/147363515X14...
https://2019.katieconf.xyz/
> Last night, February 3rd 2011, saw 100 students and fellows all sharing the name of Tom, gather together in a record-breaking charity event in Sidney Sussex dining hall. [...] For £20, Cambridge students with the name "Tom, Thomas, Tommy (or another legitimate variation)" were able to attend a black-tie, three-course formal dinner
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/3192
Deleted Comment
I wonder how all of these people met and decided to collaborate on this paper.
ie ... this is bollocks.
The USA has a wide variety, but there are also places like Vietnam where only a handful of family names are in common use and more than 30% of people are Nguyens.
> Because this paper was written in 2024, we include an obligatory section involving generative AI and LLMs.
> Another ERA is the Mayfly Parenthood Assumption, in which all parents perish immediately upon naming their child, which makes the math substantially easier.
> It is well-known that parents are always in complete agreement over the name they would prefer to pick for their newborn child.
I personally loved the semi cropped ChatGPT screen shot in figure 8 that has "Can you write me a paper on the game theory of names".
Deleted Comment
(and I appreciate how every so often the subtitles in D5 are off)
Deleted Comment
(Also, the submission date, 31 Mar 2024, suggests that the paper was intended to be published on April Fools Day.)
Nothing is less boring than a name embraced by a small energetic human confident that's who they are.
I imagine you might want a funky name for a toy to convinve yourself - that is a total non-issue for children.
I do think the best names are ones with the most meaning.
You name a kid Isaac, you could be naming him after Isaac Newton. It puts something on to him.
If you name a kid William, maybe you hope he will be the next Shakespeare.
Simply by naming someone something, you imprint something on to them. The history and power of a culture.
Yet for this very reason, especially when people see the culture as dark, they choose unique names, names that say you can be who you want to be.
Though I think I still prefer old names, looking at names of people who have done something, and then hoping to do something similar.
I think this is kind of why a convert to an orthodox Christianity, from some heterodoxy, or atheism, or from the religion of the “infadels” takes a new name in baptism. They hope to live up to whomever. If you take the name Theresa at baptism with a sense of obligation to love the lowly like Mother Theresa and so on.
Wonder if other religions do similar things?
>LEVITT: Yeah, one of the most predictable patterns when it comes to names is that almost every name that becomes popular starts out as a high-class name or a high-education name. So in these California data we had we could see the education level of the parents. And even the names that eventually become the, quote, “trashiest” kinds of names, so the Tiffanys and the Brittanys, and I’ll probably get myself in trouble, and the Caitlyns and things like that start at the top of the income distribution, and over the course of 20 or 30 or 40 years they migrate their way down, becoming more and more popular among the less-educated set.
What you see with Mabel in the paper is a fad name coming back. Hipsters bring it back, then upper class parents with hipster pretentions popularize it, then it spreads to the general population. The trick is to pick a name that sounds outdated or obscure but will come into popularity within the child's lifetime. If you wanted to do that now, you would pick something like Linda or Iris.
I would also be interested to see analysis on syllable counts. When will the boomer 2 syllable names will come back into style?
[0] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-much-does-your-name-mat...
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Harrison&assumption=%7B...
Compare with a name like Michael ( https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Michael ), which while it has fallen out of favor with newer names, is still the most common male name in the population - though the average age is 48 years.
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1970s.html
And yes, I went to school with seven Jennifers on that bus route (there were more on other bus routes). https://youtu.be/1nN_5kkYR6k
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01655515211018...
> ... we create a model which is not only tractable and clean, but also perfectly captures the real world.
Kudos to the authors for a good sense of humour.
This paper is just filled with hilarious quotes.