Rogue Amoeba - Under The Microscope

The Name Game

Thu, 17 Aug 2006

Welcome to another Adventure In Pointless Data! We've previously looked at Google Trends, Alexa rankings, and weekend sales.

Today's pointless data set is names, specifically (namely?) the names of our customers, as gleaned from our orders. These are the names that are entered as the customer's mailing address, as that's what's stored. We ran a couple queries to find out our most popular names. In last names, we have the top five:

Rank	Name	Percent of total sales
1	Smith	0.62%
2	Johnson	0.40%
3	Jones	0.32%
4	Brown	0.31%
5	Miller	0.30%

These are pretty dull, almost exactly what you'd expect. All told, the top 5 most common last names aren't even 2% of our orders - we've got a real Long Tail as far as last names go. The Long Tail is very in right now, so if you hear we got bought out for low-to-mid nine figures, believe it.

More interesting is a look at the most common first names:

Rank	Name	Percent of total sales
1	David	3.1%
2	John	2.8%
3	Michael	2.8%
4	Robert	1.8%
5	James	1.7%
6	Mark	1.5%
7	Richard	1.5%
8	Paul	1.4%
9	Peter	1.3%
10	William	1.1%

Here again we see some expected dominance in our top ten. If we add Chris and Christopher together, that's in the top five as well with 1.7%. Overall, seeing what's on the list isn't too impressive - it matches up quite well with the government's data.

There are, however, interesting things missing. There are almost no "foreign" names. Of the top 150 names, the top 100 are all standard (if not uniquely) American names. We do have Philippe at 119 and Alain at 147. But a full 1/3 of our sales come from outside the states. It would seem the rest of the (English-speaking) world just can't get together on a consensus to raise a challenge. Heck, if they did, the US would likely wind up using the name anyway.

The real juicy tidbit here is actually the paucity of women, or at least women's names. We have to go all the way to number 124 on our list before we get Susan, with just 0.13% of the orders (that'd be thirteen out of every ten thousand orders), and the only other woman in the top 150 is Jennifer at 139.

So, what's the deal ladies? Perhaps our gun-toting mascot offends your feminine sensibilities? It can't be as simple (and stupid) as that.The best theory I've heard so far, from Quentin, is that credit cards are often issued in a husband's name. Other thoughts?

As always when we're on an Adventure in Pointless Data, this information doesn't provide much. Overall, it's interesting to me personally and hopefully to you as well, if you like to geek out on tidbits pulled from large datasets. It's also a bit frightening to see just how male-dominated our customer base appears to be. Considering what (if anything) that means, however, is left as an exercise to the reader.

Posted by Paul | Permalink | View/Post Comments (5)

Comments

Matt S.
Thu Aug 17 19:05:45 2006

One idea I have is that women's names are more spread out. Like, if 100 guys are in a room, 20 of them might have the 5 most common names. But 100 women, only 10 might have the 5 most common names. I guess that would mean women's names had a longer tail, if I understand that right. Anyway, I didn't look for vertification of this, but it sounds possible.

SusanJ
Fri Aug 18 14:31:09 2006

Well who knew my name was so popular? Also, thanks for the link to that Social Security website (http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/) - finnal the SSA is doing more than just taking my money to give to old people!

Arden
Sat Aug 19 02:53:53 2006

Maybe women just don't geek out and buy software as much as men?

Paul (Rogue Amoeba Staff)
Sat Aug 19 12:34:05 2006

Matt: That's an interesting thought, and one I believe is true.

Arden: Perhaps, but our support mail is not nearly so male-dominated. I don't have an actual analysis of that, but my unscientific reading of it says that betwee 5 and 20% of our email is from women.

Hugh
Fri Sep 1 11:35:00 2006

Good thinking, Matt. That wouldn't have occurred to me, but I suspect you're correct with regard to American women currently of an age to be buying the software.

Give it a few years, though, and I think the women's names will climb the list as the frequency of common men's names decreases. My sons William (#10) and John (#2) are the only ones of their names in their classes at school. That has almost always been the case for eight years now, although once there was a Will and once a Jon -- not Jonathon, just Jon, so I don't know how you would count that. There was also a Jack, but his name actually was Jack, not John, and likewise a Billy. (Note to new parents: I know that you are lost in the now with your newborn, but he will someday be an adult. Let introducing himself to other adults as "Bubba" be his choice. But, I digress.)

Of course, in 2020 when the top three names on the list are Hunter, Taylor, and Walker you won't know how many are men and how many are women.

In line with Arden's comment, are men more likely to be in charge of buying the computer and/or add-on's and software? Not because they are the primary users but just because it's a guy thing? I don't want to generalize from my specific family's experience -- we gave our kids the weird names, after all -- but that's how it works at my house.

Lastly, the simple answer: many women don't let their names be associated with their addresses if they can help it. A female-specific name and address say "I'm a woman who lives alone and this is where you can find me" to everyone through whose hands the order, billing record, and shipment pass.

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