Important news today from Science Daily:
A new study of initial public offerings (IPOs) on two major American stock exchanges shows that people are more likely to purchase newly offered stocks that have easily pronounced names than those that do not, according to Princeton’s Adam Alter and Danny Oppenheimer. The effect extends to the ease with which the stock’s ticker code, generally a few letters long, can be pronounced — indicating that, all else being equal, a stock with the symbol BAL should outperform one with the symbol BDL in the first few days of trading.
If we accept that easy to pronounce names help companies perform well, then perhaps we can extrapolate this to other things such as people’s names. If you are already cursed with the last name Bittlestiffenderschwiz, don’t further hobble your child’s chances of success by naming him Fistascuizitzinburfer. Rather, consider a legal name change to something like Boof, and give the kid a first name like Biff. Biff Boof. Easy name. Rolls right off the tongue. If the above study is true and my extrapolation theory also holds water, people will love your kid because Biff Boff is easy to pronounce. Of course, there’s an off chance that most people are just too intellectually lazy for their own good.