Researchers in the US have found that boys with unusual or unpopular names, or feminine names are more likely to end up in gaol. Here are the top ten Boys names for ending up in gaol. (presumably from study of inmates names, I haven’t read the report).
Top 10 bad-boy names (from SMH 14.7.09)
Alec, Ernest, Garland, Ivan, Kareem, Luke, Malcolm, Preston, Tyrell, Walter.
If feminine boys names (whatever that actually means) are so dangerous, why aren’t there any in the top ten? Or are there?
“Feminine” is not the tag I would apply to those names.
“African American”, though….
I think they’re doing the correlation/causation thingy again.
Here’s the article.
I went looking for some of the author’s other work. Check out this gem:
“Does Motherhood Affect Productivity, Relative Performance, and Earnings? “
[As an aside, this, by a different author, was published in the same issue: “Same-Sex Marriage and Negative Externalities” – I’m curious as to whether anyone can report on what that paper concludes.
What the – does that study say that female professional golfers are better at golf before having children, and that therefore women with children are less productive?
That’s fantastic. I want to build a study using computer scores as a measure of productivity (which is obviously a direct observation of productivity, because there’s no proxy involved and no discrimination) and I expect I will conclude that people with jobs, outdoor hobbies and intimate relationships are less productive than 18-year-old men who live at home and are unemployed.
Isn’t it? I shall use a complex mathematical formula based on a matrix of indices of bicep strength, metabolic activity in the lactatory alveoli, a lullaby knowledge quiz, and the quantity of banana smeared on one’s person to show that becoming the mother of a young child increases productivity dramatically.
There’s a guy up here who’s studying hand-holding in lesbian relationships in order to analyse relationships between women and men where the man has been castrated due to testicular cancer.
No, really.
Anna. OMG. No.
Wow.
Must be said, I had exactly the same thought – those names aren’t terribly feminine. and I was worried about my son Jude….. But clearly it is another cause of correlation-versus-causation where the correlation wins hands down – but isn’t as sexy. I think the “low socio-economic class” factor is more telling.