Previously on this blog I asked When does a name become child abuse?. The Washington Post picked up the meme in a more mainstream application from a recent study, Odd first names linked to criminality. According to the authors the aim is to “investigate the relationship between first name popularity and juvenile delinquency to test the hypothesis that unpopular names are positively correlated with crime.” Economist Steve Leavitt points out a potential statistical bias in
Do Uncommon Names Turn Kids Into Criminals? I’ll leave the statistical bias argument to the experts but I’ll note, since no one else seems to have done so already, that this argument was first put forth by the eminent sociologist Johnny Cash. A video of him delivering the results of his analysis appears below.

• Washington Post, Odd first names linked to criminality
• Freakonomics, Do Uncommon Names Turn Kids Into Criminals?
• David E. Kalist and Daniel Y. Lee, First Names and Crime: Does Unpopularity Spell Trouble? (.pdf)

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