10.07.2003 :::
THE NAME GAME : A Comprehensive Study
This week I was reading CNN and noticed the headling "Who will distribute Mel's movie?" I immediately thought "Huh, Mel Brooks has a new movie?" Then I clicked on the link to realize that, of course, they were referring to Mel Gibson's new and controversial Jesus flick, which I was more than familiar with, but way less interested in reading about than a Mel Brooks movie. But it got me to wondering, who else would've made this mistake? Which names get the most common assumpitions? Who owns the market on the first name Sally? Struthers or Field?
So I sent out a list of 50 random first names to a select group of people and asked them to write down – next to each name – the first person who came to mind. Be it a famous person, a relative, a fictional character, whatever. Eight people responded. These are my findings.
THE RESULTS:
It may surprise you to know: celebrities and famous people are more popular than non-celebrities and not famous people. On average, people responded with 24% non-famous names (friends, relatives, coworkers, etc) and 76% famous names (actors, athletes, musicians, politicians, etc.).
MOST POPULAR RESPONSES:
These people definitely own the market on their first names:
| • | Mel Gibson |
| • | Julia Roberts |
| • | Ronald Reagan |
| • | Adam Ant |
| • | Carrie Fischer |
| • | Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat |
| • | Tina Turner |
| • | Any Drummond boy or actor who played a Drummond boy |
| The winner, and most ubiquitous name in the the responses, given by every single participant.... |
| • | Sharon Stone |
INTERESTING FACTS:
| • | Although Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck were occassionally given as responses, they were nowhere near as popular as I was expecting. In fact, Ben Folds received as many responses as Ben Affleck (2), and Jennifer Lopez only received once response total. Only ONE QUESTIONNAIRE PARTICIPANT was hypnotized enough by tabloid TV to put both (ahem, JW). |
| • | Two people did not respond with Daniel Miller for the first name Daniel. *sniff* |
| • | Everyone whose own name was on the list responded with their own name. |
| • | Two people responded with names of people they didn't know. They
knew the names but didn't know why: - George Peppard (KM) - Bill O'Reilly (JW) |
| • | Sally Struthers beat out Sally Field by one vote. Other Sallys were Sally Brown (Charlie's sister) and Sally Mae. |
| • | One participant in particular had a siginificantly higher number of Fictional Characters responses, suggesting that this person may have their head in the clouds. |
| • | Authors are not popular because nobody I know reads (except comic books). |
| • | There was no #41 on the list which totally ruins my stats and percentages making this whole thing invalid. |
| • | No one put Kenny Loggins. For shame. |
THE LISTS
Here are everyone's responses, listed out only by initial, so as to protect the innocent:
SM | JW | KM | MH | BM | JF | SK | NB
STATISTICS:
I broke out the responses into nine categories. Here's the key:
F - Friends and Aquaintances (including coworkers and such)
R - Relatives (including yourself)
M - Musicians
A - Actors (including Directors, Producers, and News Anchors)
S - Sports Athletes
P - Politicians
Fict - Fictional Characters
Hist - Historical Figures
Auth - Authors
Here is the number of responses in the above categories broken down by participant:
|
F
|
R
|
M
|
A
|
S
|
P
|
Fict
|
Hist
|
Auth
|
|
|
SM
|
4
|
5
|
3
|
29
|
4
|
3
|
-
|
1
|
-
|
|
JW
|
11
|
4
|
6
|
15
|
1
|
4
|
7
|
1
|
-
|
|
KM
|
12
|
3
|
4
|
16
|
-
|
1
|
16
|
1
|
-
|
|
MH
|
14
|
1
|
11
|
14
|
-
|
3
|
4
|
-
|
-
|
|
BM
|
7
|
3
|
8
|
20
|
-
|
-
|
6
|
1
|
1
|
|
JF
|
5
|
4
|
8
|
21
|
2
|
3
|
5
|
1
|
-
|
|
SK
|
8
|
3
|
4
|
19
|
3
|
2
|
4
|
5
|
1
|
|
NB
|
6
|
6
|
9
|
15
|
8
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
-
|
CONCLUSIONS
Now what have we all learned?
Answer: Dan apparently has a lot of time on his hands.