What's in a name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet."

Every now and then, someone intending to email me will accidentally email someone else who has the exact same name as me and a very similar email address. Fortunately the person who receives my emails is kind enough to reply to the sender and explain the mistake. After she received one of my emails today, I sent her one just to say thanks for correcting the mistake. What she didn't realize is that I also am intrigued by the prospect of other people having my name so I thought it would be kind of cool to contact her. My name twin replied. It seems she is quite friendly, though she doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're." It's forgivable though, because she has an awesome name :)

There is a cool website I like to play around with that catalogs public demographic data. You can search for a name on the website and it tells you how many people in the U.S. have that name. For example, it claims there are 7 William Shakespeares in the U.S. I'm not exactly sure why, but this kind of thing really fascinates me.

It reminds me of the documentary Searching for Angela Shelton, which I have not yet seen but would really like to. According to the documentary's website, "filmmaker Angela Shelton drives around the United States surveying other Angela Sheltons. She discovers that 24 out of the 40 Angela Sheltons she speaks to are survivors of rape, childhood sexual abuse and/or domestic abuse. (The number jumped to 28 out of 40 when 4 more Angelas broke their silence after the movie was completed.)" I imagine the documentary is focused more on sexual abuse than people who share a name, and though I'm guessing it might be a real downer, I'd really like to see it. There is also a similar book called Finding Angela Shelton.  

Nearly everyone shares their name with at least one other person, but how many of us share our appearance? More than you might expect. Check out this photo album of doppelgangers photographed by Canadian photographer Francois Brunelle. Also, ABC's 20/20 did a cool video and story on unrelated people who look practically identical (Does Everybody Have a Double? One Photographer Captures Look-Alikes Around the World). Brunelle is cited in the article to have explained that "[e]ven if the resemblance to your double is flattering [...], it can trigger a little earthquake in your ego. Your sense of identity is shaken." As a result, "some people contacted by Brunelle have refused to be photographed when they learn they have a double." Given the enormous number of people in the world, I believe I likely have a double. I wonder if I would feel the same "earthquake" and experience a disrupted sense of identity if I found my double? I feel that to a much lesser degree when I research my name and realize just how many of us are out there (468 in the U.S., and at least one that I know of in Canada). 

And while I am on the topic of names...

-Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, has a fun blog entry (This Identity Theft I Can Live With) about a letter he received from a Steven Dubner.

-The New York Times reports that Jones and Rodriguez have made it into the top 10 American suranames (In U.S. Name Count, Garcias Are Catching Up With Joneses). If you view the article at the NYT's website, there is also a cool surname search feature from the Census Bureau.

-The Baby Name Wizard has some really fun features, including Name Voyager, a searchable, visual representation of name trends across time, and Name Mapper, which maps name trends geographically and across time. 

-A recent Social Science Quarterly Article ("First Names and Crime: Does Unpopularity Spell Trouble?") found "that unpopular names are positively correlated with juvenile delinquency for both blacks and whites." 

-"Cattle that are named and treated with a 'more personal touch' can increase milk yields by up to 500 pints a year." (BBC: Cows Find Milky Way to Happiness)

-Freakonomics has a great chapter on names (Perfect Parenting, Part II; or: Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?). I especially enjoyed the true story about brothers named Winner and Loser who happened to live up to eachother's names. That anecdote leads up to some fun lists of the "Whitest" and "Blackest" names, the most popular high-end and low-end names, and even ten spellings of the name Jasmine in ascending order of maternal education.

And finally, no discussion of names is complete without mentioning the (fictitious?) twins rumored to be named OrangeJello and LemonJello. One of my teammates claims they exist and grew up near Roseville, MN. In the Freakonomics Blog entry "Good Communication Skills Have Never Been So Important," Steven Levitt shares an email from a reader who claims to have located OrangeJello and LemonJello not in Minnesota, but in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).