Top ten 'bad-boy' names

Adolescent boys with unpopular, uncommon or 'girlish' first names are more likely to be delinquents, according to a study carried out by an American economist (see here). This study bears out previous studies, which have found, for instance, that people judge boys' masculinity and trustworthiness from their names, and that parents with fewer years of education are more likely to give their children unpopular names. Another study showed that boys with unpopular names are more likely to be living in a single-parent household. All of these studies are American, by the way.

It's not the name per se that causes the criminal behaviour. In some cases, a negative reaction from others causes the young man to have lower self-esteem. If a young man has a name that makes his ethnic group clear, this can sometimes lower his job prospects, which might be related to a drift into criminal activity.

The top ten bad-boy names (listed in alphabetical order), according to the latest study are Alec, Ernest, Garland, Ivan, Kareem, Luke, Malcolm, Preston, Tyrell and Walter.

An unusual name did not harm Barack Obama, it must be said.

Comments

[Shuchi]

Barack Obama is an exception for more than one name study.

With a surname that starts with the 15th letter of the alphabet and initials that spell B.O., he has all the odds stacked against him according to this report: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3294546/Is-your-name-to-blame-for-unhappiness.html

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks Shuchi. That's an interesting article. I had a post last year about how leaders tended to have names spelled A, B, C. See here:
http://virtuallinguist.typepad.com/the_virtual_linguist/2008/09/alphabetism.html