
Disproportionately Common Names by Profession - colinprince
http://verdantlabs.com/professions/index.html
======
teamhappy
> People with these names are more likely than others to have these
> professions.

Shouldn't it say: "People with these names happen to be in those professions
more often than others"?

Anyway, there are a couple of fun ones in there, but I'll let you figure those
out yourself. Unfortunately neither my name nor my profession are covered —
I'm not quite sure what to make of that. :/

\---

They use the same language in their blog post: "Arnolds therefore appear to
have a much higher tendency to be accountants than Shanes." That's just wrong,
no? By wrong I just mean intentionally misleading. I'm sure that has nothing
to do with the fact that they sell an app that helps you find names for you
babies though.

~~~
adevine
It doesn't appear incorrect to me. The blurb on the graph says "For example, a
higher percentage of Elwoods are farmers than of most any other name."

As I read it, it means that, say, 1% of Elwoods become farmers, while only .1%
of Steves are farmers. That is, if your name is Elwood, you are much more
likely to be a farmer than if your name is anything else.

~~~
coherentpony
What you're implying here is that correlation implies causation.

If 99% of farmers are Elwoods, you can't claim that one's name being Elwood
means one is more likely to become a farmer.

~~~
walterbell
In that scenario, could one claim that "one's name being Elwood means one is
more likely to _BE_ a farmer"?

~~~
teamhappy
Yup, you got it right. The wording is important.

Apparently, if your name is Elwood you're more likely to _be_ a farmer today.
But that obviously doesn't mean that kids named Elwood are more likely to
become farmers (it could, but I'm afraid you're gonna have to proof that).

Wikipedia has some simple examples:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation)

~~~
madcaptenor
In this case, it probably means that people named Elwood are more likely to
(a) be older and (b) live in rural areas, both of which are correlated with
being a farmer.

------
anonu
I remember when I joined CMU my Freshman year the big thing was that the
previous year there had been more guys named "Dave" that had graduated from
Computer Science than women. This kind of reminds me of that. This was circa
year 2001.

~~~
vickytnz
A comedy channel in the UK decided to rename the channel a few years back.
They bandied names around, then someone said. "How about Dave? Everyone knows
Dave, Dave's your mate." Dave it was. As it turns out, David has been in the
top 3 names from 1954-1994, so reality is if you're a Boomer, Gen X, or Gen Y,
you really do know a Dave. (Stats table here:
[http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-
tables.h...](http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-
tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-243767))

------
callum85
I don't get why this is presented as a 'chart'. Do the layout and colours mean
anything? Or is it just a set of lists laid out in circles for no reason?

~~~
munificent
The chart is meaningless. Having a colorful image makes links to the post look
more appealing in Facebook, G+, Pinterest, etc.

These days, you pretty much have to put a pretty picture in an article if you
want traffic from social sites.

------
vickytnz
Gah, I hate stats that a) don't say where the information comes from b) don't
say which part of the world they're talking about (US sites are particularly
prone to this). I'm assuming this is from US census data, but it's not
particularly obvious. There's a rest of the world, you know.... [EDIT: looking
at the app, maybe it is worldwide? Still, referring to things like
"Republican" doesn't inspire confidence that it's international]

~~~
Houshalter
It says the data sources are from the FEC, SSA, and wikipedia.

~~~
boomlinde
It does, but it only points to the websites of FEC, SSA and Wikipedia, without
really mentioning what data was used. That's barely more useful to me than
"Source: Internet".

------
marche101
[http://www.verdantlabs.com/blog/2014/12/30/names-by-
professi...](http://www.verdantlabs.com/blog/2014/12/30/names-by-profession/)

Direct link to the blog that goes in to a few details of how they work out the
names.

------
dghughes
I visited a fire station in the country in my province a few years ago and on
the wall were names of the volunteers.

Nearly every one was John Gallant, the surname is very common and it's a small
community.

The funny thing is the surname is so common people have nicknames such as John
'Rabbit' Gallant but that name becomes so well-known his son will be called
Rabbit Jr.

So the plaque is full of a wild mix of actual surnames and given names and of
course nicknames but also the junior of the nicknamed people.

Add to that one family has seven daughters all named Mary.

~~~
theorique
PEI?

~~~
dghughes
Of course!

------
tarpherder
Its interesting to see the difference in type of names between Football Coach
(Dan, Bill, Mike, Jim, Rich, Steve) and Electrical Engineer (Bernard, Eugene,
Edwin, Charles, Alfred, Harvey). Short (one vowel each), common, English
versus longer (two vowels each) French/"Posh" English names. Correlation
between the names and background/educative level seems likely?

Songwriter is interesting too: 4 out of 5 end with a variation of "y".

~~~
swamp40
It's also possible that football coaches have a tendency to commonize their
names - whether to fit in and make their players more relaxed, or maybe they
were just raised in solid blue-collar American families.

Their birth certificates could very well read Daniel, William, Michael, James,
Richard, Steven.

Similarly, the EE's probably have a tendency to be more formal on their
resumes or business cards.

Their family and buddies probably calls them Bernie, Gene, Eddie, Chuck,
Freddy, Harv.

~~~
saraid216
The data sources are the FEC and SSA (and Wikipedia, for some reason). Which
means that this data is coming off the stuff they submitted to the government
for whatever reason.

------
jMyles
This seems fairly easy to explain: Many given names are passed down through
family lines, and many families pass on knowledge, habits, and even
professions from generation to generation.

There are lots of common surnames that demonstrate this - Taylor, Cooper,
Cobbler, Smith, and so on. Why not given names?

~~~
walshemj
Yep my cousin was named George as was My late Uncle as the idea was that he
would carry on the family trade as a turf accountants (book makers)in
Birmingham.

Note that this was pre legalisation so watching peaky blinders(uk version of
Atlantic boardwalk) on the BBC was interesting shall we say

------
kornakiewicz
Some time ago, I saw a paper when some scientists find that people often tends
to have place of live and job which is somehow connected with their names eg.
there's more Denises who works as dentists or Louises in Louisiane. I also
noticed that in my country (Poland) there's quite more people working in IT
with names or surnames which begins on K (Polish word for computer is
"komputer"), I'm the case.

~~~
V-2
> I also noticed that in my country (Poland) there's quite more people working
> in IT with names or surnames which begins on K (Polish word for computer is
> "komputer")

You don't say... :) Perhaps because names starting with K are simply very
common in Poland? ;) 1 in 6 out of 100 most popular last names starts with K.

And quite more IT employees than whom exactly? Presidents of the country?
Since 1989 Poland had: Jaruzelski, Walesa, Kwasniewski, Kaczynski and
Komorowski... Among prime ministers (since the 90s) about 1 in 5 had either
first name or last name that begins with K :)

~~~
kornakiewicz
Okay, maybe you're right and I'm just biased with serial killer who killed few
software developers with K-name living in Kraków

Polish article:
[http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/1,114873,9855837,Krak...](http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/1,114873,9855837,Krakow__Zaginal_Pawel_Krasny__W_tle_mroczna__miejska.html)

~~~
V-2
Wow, now that's interesting :)

By the way, believe it or not, I do work as a programmer (in Poland), and my
first name does indeed start with K :) Not the last name though, so I feel
safe.

While the serial killer theory could boil down to a statistical oddity, it
reminded me of this novel by Lem:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Investigation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Investigation)

------
crazygringo
> _Here 's a chart with 6 of the names that are the most disproportionately
> common in 37 professions._

It doesn't say they're the _top_ 6, just that they're "6 of" \-- and having
worked with a lot of similar data sets in the past, the results here feel a
little overly edited (i.e. exaggerated, stereotyped) to me. I'd be happy to be
proven wrong, though.

~~~
toupeetape
[http://www.verdantlabs.com/blog/2014/05/23/nametrix-2/](http://www.verdantlabs.com/blog/2014/05/23/nametrix-2/)

There they list the actual top 5 for some professions. Having read that, I am
inclined to agree with you here.

The top 6 for car salesmen in that graph has literally only one name (Clay)
that is in the actual top 5 and even that was only 5th. The top 4 names
(Emmett, Luther, Emanuel, Morton) all got replaced with stereotypical white
working class guy names.

The top 6 for surgeon in the graph has no female names yet the actual most
disproportionately common name for surgeons is 'Vivienne'.

------
logn
Not sure I trust the results. For guitarists they list: Mick, Richie, Trey,
Sonny, Buddy, Eddie. That correlates strongly with famous musician names (Mick
Jagger, Lionel Richie, Trey Anastasio, Sonny Rollins, Buddy Guy, Eddie Van
Halen). Maybe kids are named after these legends and are pushed toward music,
but maybe their software just counted a lot of duplicate mentions?

~~~
toupeetape
In some of those cases, it could also partly be people adapting their names
after those legends. For example, a budding guitarist called Michael who loves
Mick Jagger choosing to go by the name of Mick. As Michael is a far more
common name than Mick, it would only take a small proportion of 'Michael's to
do that and suddenly 'Mick' makes the guitarist list.

------
Camillo
This is worthless unless they correct for age. Which they most likely don't,
since age is not even mentioned in the post.

~~~
stygiansonic
Indeed, the time period in which someone was born seems to have a significant
effect on the likelihood of certain names. Here's one study that documents
that effect in the US:

[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-tell-someones-
age...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-tell-someones-age-when-all-
you-know-is-her-name/)

~~~
pawelk
Wolfram Alpha parses queries like "how old is [name]" and renders the age
distribution, e.g.
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+old+is+jane](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+old+is+jane)

------
V-2
The correlation is obviously indirect, since names are correlated with age,
social class, region and other demographics, and these are in turn correlated
with career choices.

Once the stats were adjusted for the above, I suppose we'd end up with not
much more but noise and some spurious correlations occassionally:
[http://twentytwowords.com/funny-graphs-show-correlation-
betw...](http://twentytwowords.com/funny-graphs-show-correlation-between-
completely-unrelated-stats-9-pictures/)

------
theorique
_Rabbi - Chaim, Shlomo, Judah, Meir, Yosef, Moshe_

Seems sort of ... logical.

------
ryanmim
Okay so normally I hate people that bring up gender, but there were some
interesting correlations between professions and gender here. Assuming there
aren't many guys named Sue. For example, meteorologist: 100% male. When I
think meteorologist I think newscast in front of a greens creen so this is
perhaps a case of my terrible misconceptions showing.

Also, WHY are things separated by color and opacity? If we're going by
opacity, apparently one of the most populous and important professions
is...race car driver. Really? That's one of the few professions on that huge
infographic that is at maximum opacity?

------
mojuba
... in the U.S. Do these people think it should be immediately obvious to
everyone?

------
normloman
Looks like people alter their name to fit the stereotype of their profession.
Lots of drummers named Billy, but I bet it says William on their birth
certificate. Same for coaches named Rich, not Richard.

------
proveanegative
Apparently they don't state what "disproportionately" is supposed to mean. If
that is indeed the case I doubt much valid insight can be derived from this
chart.

~~~
teamhappy
"In our sample of two and a half million people, a whopping 1.9% of Arnolds
are accountants. Contrast that with just 0.55% of Shanes. Arnolds therefore
appear to have a much higher tendency to be accountants than Shanes."

[http://www.verdantlabs.com/blog/2014/12/30/names-by-
professi...](http://www.verdantlabs.com/blog/2014/12/30/names-by-profession/)

You see where this is going. If you correlate the data with the popularity of
names in general, you'll find that Arnold is a much more popular name than
Shane ...

~~~
kornakiewicz
Well, you're not right. Almost 2% of Arnolds is more than 0.5% of Shanes, no
matter how much there're Arnolds and Shanes. If you take 100 Arnolds and 100
Shanes there will be (statistically) 2 Arnolds and "half of Shane".

~~~
teamhappy
> Well, you're not right.

I think I am, but I might be wrong on that one too.

Given a pool of 10 people to hire from where 6 people are named Arnold and 4
are named shawn Shawn, wouldn't you expect that same relation to show in a
specific profession? You can, of course, go ahead and compare those relations.
So, if there only were 5 race car drivers in the world and 4 of them were
named Arnold that would be noteworthy (as opposed to 60% of them, which is
what you'd expect). _Please let me know if I got something wrong._

\---

Somebody just posted an article stating the numbers where actually correlated
with the frequency they are used. I'm not sure how they did it though given
that those numbers change over time.

~~~
Bedon292
I think their data is going the other direction. It is not 1.9% of Accountants
are Arnolds. Its 1.9% of Arnolds are Accountants.

You would expect that the percent of each profession by name should be the
same. So if there are 25 professions, then within any given name you should
have 4% going to each professions. So 4% of Arnolds should be a profession,
and 4% of Shawns should also have the same profession. That is not what the
data shows though. Within any given name there is a tendency towards the
professions the chart shows.

This definitely does not account for location, birthdays, etc. But it is still
interesting.

------
Shengbo
Interesting choice of professions. Race car drivers and musicians seem to have
similar names. Other than that I have no idea what to do with this
information.

------
breitling
Here's an interesting article about how names could have long lasting effects:
[http://www.livescience.com/6569-good-bad-baby-names-long-
las...](http://www.livescience.com/6569-good-bad-baby-names-long-lasting-
effects.html)

Also, many cultures obsess over giving the child a good name with a good
meaning as they think it determines their future.

------
kevhito
Gads, the even got the title wrong. Should be "Disproportionately common
professions by Name". Or, actually, all we can tell from the little on that
page is that the title contradicts the subtitle. So maybe the subtle that
should be reversed. Who knows? Data is fun!

------
ant6n
So, like, the richer you are, the higher the probability that your first name
is actually a last name.

------
egypturnash
I like how this has "photographer" and "graphic designer" but not "artist".
Never mind "cartoonist". Apparently my profession doesn't exist.

------
Gravityloss
The farmers have the coolest names by far. Or at least to a non-american
person, they seem rare. Maybe people in those professions are rarely in the
public eye.

------
plg
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent)

------
priorityfeed
Venture capitalists bucket includes "Guy"... is that from _Guy Kawasaki_
swaying stats to be that high!

------
spion
Nice chart. It would be interesting if hovering over a name also highlights
the same name in other professions.

------
nichochar
In the united states.

Aha funny how people don't define their data correctly, this is an important
datapoint

------
pkaye
Funny I know electrical engineers names Bernard, Alfred and Eugene all from
the same company...

------
wowoc
Where are the numbers? It would be interesting if it wasn't so vague.

~~~
walterbell
Also the source of the data, e.g. is it influenced by geography?

------
neduma
Any Indian names? Like Raj, Pabu, Das, etc. included in this study?

------
sakri
What about douchebag? Josh, Chad, Tyler, Brad etc?

~~~
kolev
That's interprofessional.

------
phaedryx
I know a lot of IT professionals named Mike.

------
ommunist
Hehe. I am biased to be Electrical Engineer.

------
rajat2109
Kim- Police officer? The only Kim I can imagine is Kim Kardishan.

~~~
saraid216
[http://www.totalmediabridge.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/12/K...](http://www.totalmediabridge.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/12/Kim_Possible.jpg)

------
JohnE008
After we tackled gender inequalities, we can move on to name inequalities. How
about introducing name-quotas, that ought to fix the problem.

~~~
learnstats2
I gather you're being sarcastic, but high name inequality is just another
illustration of a lack of social mobility.

People of a certain social class are more likely to name their child certain
names, and those children are more likely to grow up into particular
professions.

Name inequality represents clear evidence against the existence of a
meritocracy.

~~~
V-2
> Name inequality represents clear evidence against the existence of a
> meritocracy.

Meritocracy in what sense?

Coming from wealthier background, you're more likely to be well educated.

While we may dislike that it is so, it doesn't mean there's no meritocracy in
the sense that employers don't hire people based on their qualifications
alone. Only that they don't care where these qualifications come from.

~~~
learnstats2
> Coming from wealthier background, you're more likely to be well educated.

So, by your admission, education is not meritocratic.

I claim that employment is non-meritocratic first by your measure: if access
to a better education is not merited, then employers concentrating on
qualifications alone are not hiring according to merit.

I claim also that employment is non-meritocratic independently. The most
obvious example is that wealth similarly gives you exclusive access to low-
paying but prestigious jobs.

I suspect overall that background wealth is still a better marker for job
status than education.

~~~
lmm
> I claim that employment is non-meritocratic first by your measure: if access
> to a better education is not merited, then employers concentrating on
> qualifications alone are not hiring according to merit.

That doesn't follow. Maybe education changes your merit, and people with a
better education actually are better at their jobs.

~~~
learnstats2
It follows.

Or, in your meritocracy, people pay to increase their merit/the merit of their
children? That contradicts my definition.

~~~
lmm
What definition would that be? A nation where people were not allowed to learn
outside of standardized government training might achieve equality, but only
by grinding everyone down to zero.

~~~
learnstats2
Haha. No, it's more like this for me: if the provided education system were
good and appropriately diverse, few people would feel the need to pay to leave
it.

Then you might be able to say that everyone had access to a decent standard of
education.

~~~
lmm
That doesn't make the difference you think it does. There are European
countries where barely anyone pays for education (and private
schools/universities are less reputable than state ones). You still find the
children of wealthy people are disproportionately likely to be wealthy
themselves. Parental involvement, cultural attitudes to education - and,
probably, as politically unacceptable as it is to say it, genetics as well -
seem like bigger effects than expensive private education.

~~~
learnstats2
Sure, before I was derailed by education, my point was that society is not
meritocratic. So we're now agreeing.

We don't know if genetics is an effect here because we can't eliminate
background wealth - even twin studies are broken because twins get adopted
into similar environments.

But, the suggestion from twin studies is that income is primarily
environmental, i.e. not genetic. Here's a fresh reference:
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141106113202.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141106113202.htm)

I suggest that it's fashionable to say social inequality is down to genetics -
it certainly happens a lot in these forums and it comes up especially when
people would rather pass the buck for difficult social problems.

~~~
lmm
Genetics aren't the only thing we inherit, and aren't the only possible source
of differences in merit. It could equally be cultural differences - e.g.
attitudes towards education, work, society and so on - that would be passed on
even to adopted children, and would make people genuinely better at their
jobs. Even if the advantages of the rich are purely environmental, that in no
way proves that they're not meritocratic.

