Ever since reading Freakonomics, I’ve had a well-nigh Kabalarian interest in names and their impacts on our lives. I recently encountered a couple of articles which furthered my name-related knowledge.
- Julie Leung sent me this Guardian article, which discusses a correlation between girls’ names and whether they go into math and science. Apparently the more feminine the name, the less likely a career in the numbers game. Want a science nerd in the family? Name your daughter Alex or Abigail.
- Boing Boing referenced this analysis from the Freakonomics blog, which shows the top names for UK dogs and cats (Molly for both, as it turns out), and notes the overlap with top baby names (PDF). Personally, I was disappointed that neither Breadstick nor Spatula are in the top pet names.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
The reminds me of the observation that researchers by the names of J.W. Splatt and D. Weedon were in fact urologists who published several papers on incontinence together. This led New Scientist to coin and popularize the term ‘nominative determinism’ to refers to amusing instances where people’s names coincidentally reflect some aspect of their jobs, professions or lives. A favourite instance of ND of mine is the example of the Archbishop of Manila who’s name and title combined to the assignation Cardinal Sin.