What's In A Name?

Back when I was a new graduate student, I was tasked with preparing a data file for analysis. It contained every juvenile arrest in a particular not-to-be-named state for 10 years. In order to match juveniles across years and study rearrest, we had their names and birth dates. I even had a hard copy printed on the lovely continuous-feed printer paper you see on the left.

One of my favorite hobbies back then was to skim the names and look for, let's just say, "outliers". Some of the names I remember of these young delinquents seemed fated for a life of crime. Because I can't print their actual names (Hello, IRB! I know you're watching!) and also because I can't remember them exactly, here's a few close approximations¹:

• Jesse James Jones
• Krystle Carrington Smith
• Alexis Carrington Smith (twins)
• Orangejello Browning
• Lemonjello Browning (again, twins)

So, you get the drift.

Today while browsing the Smoking Gun, I discovered a story about this man.

Name your children carefully, people.

(P.S. On a totally different topic, I'm watching 30 Rock while I type this. Best quote: "Stop patriciding!")

¹ Any similarities to actual names of real people is purely coincidence. Don't sue me.