
Middle name initials enhance evaluations of intellectual performance (2014) - dmichulke
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2026
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monitron
My grandfather, born with no middle name, was urged by his colleagues to
fabricate one because he needed a middle initial for appearance's sake in his
field. Everyone used their middle initial in communications. And besides, you
couldn't have a monogram without three initials.

His first name was Alexander, and being a modest man, he settled on a middle
initial of "G," which he joked stood for "the Great." Apparently it worked for
him. I'm not sure if it was a legal name change but he used it for the rest of
his life.

~~~
0xffff2
In the US, generally speaking, you are free to just start using a new name. I
did the opposite, dropping my middle name wherever possible and it has only
come up once. I even got my current passport issued without my middle name by
accident. (I forgot to put my middle name on the application and it was never
questioned.)

~~~
troebr
I've been asked about why my boarding pass didn't have the same name as my
passport once, back when I didn't put a middle name. I'm from France where we
traditionally have 3 first names: <actual first name> <godmother|father's
first name> <grandmother|father's first name> (at least that's how I was
named). For paperwork purposes in the US I had to make up a middle name so I
use my second and third names. Say Albert Bernard Charles Dupont would be:
"Albert" "Bernard Charles" "Dupont". This way it's also consistent with my
passport.

I also don't put my name's accent in most computer systems in the US (é). I
have it on Linkedin though, and it trips a surprising amount of automated
recruiting emails.

~~~
jcelerier
> I'm from France where we traditionally have 3 first names: <actual first
> name> <godmother|father's first name> <grandmother|father's first name> (at
> least that's how I was named).

as a french... euh quoi ?

~~~
Arkaad
Having multiple middle names is common in France. It doesn't mean that all
French do it, though.

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crummy
When I read the names of the authors - "Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg Eric R.
Igou" \- I was immediately impressed.

~~~
Nokinside
People who criticize the study because it's based on students in one
university don't understand that the study is also a meta level demonstration
of the effect. They passed the peer review.

I'm in awe.

Other study from them:

Igou, E. R., & Van Tilburg, W. A. P. (2015). Ahead of others in the authorship
order: Names with middle initials appear earlier in author lists of academic
articles in psychology. Frontiers in Psychology, 6.
doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00469

[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0046...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00469/full)

~~~
WhompingWindows
There's a simple confounding reason for this. The earlier authors are in the
author list, the more likely they are to be actively contributing. If there's
a sparse contributor who doesn't respond, who has many papers already, or who
is not actively involved in the final read-throughs, they will likely be
somewhere in the middle of the author list and may miss that their middle
initial is not correct. In contrast, if you are a first author, you will make
damned sure your exact precise name is there, as your impact factor and future
success hinges on the total number of papers you have.

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Spooky23
The ultimate smartguy does first initial, middle name, especially when the
middle name is obscure. You also avoid sounding like a serial killer in the
wrong context.

J. Ulyssses Smith is obviously much smarter than a run of the mill John Smith.
John U. Smith sounds like a guy who is “quiet and keeps to himself”.

~~~
achamayou
J. Ulyssses Smith doesn’t “look” quite as smart as J. Ulysses Smith however...

~~~
Spooky23
Nice catch! Then again, spelling names wrong is trendy!

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joshvm
Standout claim from the paper:

> Moreover, people with initials carrying a positive meaning (e.g., H. U. G.)
> _live_ longer compared with those with initials carrying a negative meaning
> (e.g., M. A. D.; Christenfeld, Phillips, & Glynn, 1999).

(Emphasis the authors)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10576473](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10576473)

~~~
CamelCaseName
My initials are N.A., where does that leave me?

~~~
make3
in the gaming community, the NA zone is pretty cancer

~~~
always_good
So are the gaming community's memes, especially outside the gaming community.

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sshine
How about people with non-breaking spaces in their name, how do they fare in
life?

Tech support: "Was that John Doe?"

JD: "No, I said John Doe!"

~~~
GFischer
Irish surnames with apostrophes are beloved by databases everywhere.

Here in Uruguay there are countless examples of immigrants that had to change
their first or last name due to them being hard to write for immigration
officials.

My grandparent went from Hermann to "German". We surprisingly kept the last
name intact (most were botched on the translation to Spanish).

~~~
Izkata
> Irish surnames with apostrophes are beloved by databases everywhere.

One of my co-devs changed his name on the internal system like that, just so
he'd break anything he was working on before a client did.

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yoz-y
They should add "in tests conducted exclusively on university students" in
there.

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ChrisArchitect
so like Wile E. Coyote, Genius?

Also can't ignore that this is on a domain wiley.com hahaha

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Nasrudith
It has me wondering immediately about specific possiblecounter examples. Would
it have that "prestige" effect for more unusual names like say Moon U. Zappa.
Obviously fake or unfortunate names probably wouldn't benefit like Isaac P.
Daily.

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raverbashing
Does it increase with more middle names? Like Charles P. A. George?

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bjourne
The five studies they base their conclusions on were conducted on students at
the University of Limerick, the University of Limerick, the University of
Limerick, the University of Limerick and the University of Limerick.

We conclude that middle name initials are a big deal around the University of
Limerick campus.

~~~
edoloughlin
So, a slightly narrower scope than the usual psychology study.

~~~
jermaustin1
This actually seems more comprehensive than most. They tested multiple times!

There is a pretty decent episode of Freakonomics Radio around how reproducible
(or not) many psychological studies are. I know this is an issue for most
studies, but Psychology seems to be in a league of their own with the
"reproduction rate".

~~~
ekianjo
> how reproducible (or not) many psychological studies are.

Combine small effect size with a complete lack of understanding of statistics
and you can be fairly sure that most psychological studies' conclusions are
borderline junk level.

~~~
superhuzza
It has little to do with statistical understanding.

All psych students are required to study stats, and review the study design
before starting.

It has everything to with a more systemic problem - publish or perish.

Students and professors alike are basically forced to run new studies.
Conducting psych studies takes a lot of money and time because you're dealing
with people. And that money and time isn't always available - so your
standards drop a lot so you can just graduate or keep researching.

~~~
IMTDb
This.

And so far my experience is that most (but definitely not all) psych student
are usually choosing psych over STEM due to their repulsion of math, physics
and 'anything number'.

They see stats as an 'unfortunate exam they need to get through to pass' so
they aim for a barley passing grade in order to focus on other areas they are
more interested in. When they are pressured into publishing something the
stats part is once again seen as "the impossibly complex part they need help
with to be able to publish their interesting findings".

They have guidelines such as "p must be <= 0.05" so they try to mess with the
data until they reach that point. Usually, most of the paper (including the
conclusion) is already written so stats are considered to be the last
administrative bruden to get trough to be able to publish.

~~~
mattnewton
I think this is an unfair stereotype. Psychology is really hard, the system
you are studying is many times more complex than many other fields. I am going
to have to ask for the source on that last paragraph too, that’s basically
slandering the whole field as not doing actual science.

~~~
smallnamespace
> Psychology is really hard, the system you are studying is many times more
> complex than many other fields.

If that's true though, then the mathematical rigor that should be demanded
from its students must be higher than in other fields in order to achieve the
same level of reliability. I doubt that is the case today.

~~~
mattnewton
The gp is basically saying psychologists can’t get the math right because most
don’t like math and are just playing house to get publications. I am saying
many do appreciate good statistics and go to bed worrying about it at night,
and the lack of general reproducibility has more to do with the complexity of
the field.

In most cases you have to find and convince a statistically representative
sample to participate, and that’s so expensive and hard enough to often not be
done completely, without having to consider that a statistically
representative sample of individuals for many psychological phenomena is an
impossible task.

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thedjinn
That's great, now I need a middle name. Any good suggestions?

~~~
AndrewOMartin
Just take an initial letter, as in Rembrandt Q Einstein, or Homer J Simpson.

I use my middle initial (see my username) because there are plenty of Andrew
Martins in these circles.

~~~
nkozyra
Be honest: you're just hunting for a little more Irish cred.

~~~
JdeBP
For more Irish cred, one can of course include an apostrophe as well as the
other means mentioned elsewhere in this discussion. Verilog is quite useful in
this regard, because of the way that one writes hexadecimal constants.

John 003'hdeadface Smith. Known as "six" to his friends.

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nickthemagicman
So is it JUST the initials? Or would the actual middle name serve the same
effect I wonder.

~~~
tonyarkles
I'm half joking half serious with this: that might subconsciously cause people
to associate you with serial killers. For whatever reason, serial killers are
frequently referred to by their complete name.

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davidy123
I commonly use my middle initial, not to be pretentious, but because there are
so many people who have the same first and last name as me. I expect within a
smaller pool of names (a culturally distinct region), or in the global space,
that's why most people use them.

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avvt4avaw
Authors: Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg & Eric R. Igou

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omegote
Good thing I have a first name, a middle name and two surnames. That makes me
a prodigy.

~~~
sshine
That depends on how you contract your name in research papers.

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noemit
About a year ago, I read this and added my initial to linkedin. You won't
believe what happened next.

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pseingatl
Middle names (and initials) are ubiquitous in North America. Not so in the
British Isles, OZ and NZ.

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cafard
Alfred E. Newman, my hero!

