Be careful when naming your child

I came across an interesting article discussing a study that concludes kids with unpopular names are more likely to be deliquent:

What’s in a name? Possibly a life of crime.

An unpopular name - like Alec, Ernest, Ivan, or Malcolm - is more likely to spell trouble than favourites Michael, Matthew or Christopher, according to research presented Saturday at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of B.C.

“There is a positive correlation between unpopular first names and juvenile delinquency,” said Daniel Lee, an economics professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania…

Lee has a word of advice: “It’s all right to give unique names to your children, but make sure you become a good parent.”

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=ff841028-6389-44e9-8609-93ddbef6e4a5

I didn’t read the full text of the study, and it may conflict with research done by the economist Steven Levitt in his excellent book, “Freakonomics” (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/

I have long thought that naming kids certain off-beat names may give them a subtle handicap in life.  Some kids manage just fine even with odd names.  Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s kids will get along just fine being named Scout or Ryder (or whatever their names are).  But most kids don’t have the built-in advantage of celebrity and wealth.  Why take the chance if your kids won’t have such built-in advantages? 

And on a more mundane note, do you want your kids to go through the aggravation (admittedly slight) of having to spell, and respell their names to ever restaurant hostess and every other person who takes down their names?  You might think this is a trivial thing, but it adds up over the years.