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An App for Names
Our latest Freakonomics Radio podcast is called “How Much Does Your Name Matter?” A listener named Mark Edmond wrote in to tell us about Nametrix, a names app he created: I’m a new dad who was...
View ArticleDiscriminating Software
The Economist takes a look at the software that big companies are using to sort through job applicants. It finds that people who use Chrome and Firefox browsers are better employees, and people with...
View ArticleMore on the Google AdWords Controversy
A reader named Desmond Lawrence writes from London with further commentary on our “How Much Does Your Name Matter” podcast — specifically, about Harvard computer scientist Latanya Sweeney‘s research...
View ArticleFREAK-est Links
Movie tickets cost as much as $48; “Star Wars” creator George Lucas predicts that ticket prices are only going up. (HT: SM Fishman) Name wars: Borghese Inc. fights the Borghese family for the right to...
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Price Discrimination? Racial Discrimination?
From a reader named Philip Mulder comes this photograph: Philip says this is a hair-cutting joint in Washington, D.C. As you can see, it offers a 50% discount if your name is — in this case — Amanda,...
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What’s in an Americanized Name?
(Photo: Marlon E) What’s in a name? Steve Levitt and economists following on his work have examined how racial differences in given names generate (or don’t) differences in economic outcomes. A new...
View ArticleA Baby Name That Really Tells You Something About the Parents
The underlying point of everything we’ve ever written about baby names is that the name is essentially the parents’ signal to the world of what they think of their kid — whether it’s a signal of...
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Mike Brown Vs. Mike Brown
The Old Lake County Courthouse in Crown Point, IN. (Photo: Joey Lax-Salinas) Thanks to @PE_Mulroe via Twitter, here’s a story from the (Northwest Indiana) Post-Tribune that combines two of our favorite...
View ArticleAmerican Baby Names Are Somehow Getting Even Worse
This piece on baby names by Drew Magary made me laugh out loud. I sent it to my wife, and she laughed so hard she cried. The post American Baby Names Are Somehow Getting Even Worse appeared first on...
View ArticleA Freakonomics Radio Bleg: What's Your Name?
Want to be part of an episode of Freakonomics Radio? We’re working on a podcast about names and we want to hear from readers and listeners about their own names — common ones, unusual ones, everything...
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All Aboard the Gordon Bethune
Here’s a picture I snapped out the window at Newark (Liberty International) Airport not long ago. It’s a Continental Boeing 777 whose nose, as you can see, features the name of former Continental...
View ArticleSix Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Economists’ Version
Justin Lahart at the Wall Street Journal suggests a new party game for economists (or at least something to keep you awake if a conference gets dull): Six Degrees of Joe Stiglitz. He’s suggesting the...
View ArticleThe Economics of Teeth, and Other Beauty Premiums
I’ve been thinking a lot about teeth lately. First I read this post by Ian Ayres on the value of getting a tooth cleaning. Then I was out in Salt Lake City to give a lecture at the University of Utah,...
View ArticleChoosing the Name of the Year
| The proprietors of the Name of the Year contest “can’t imagine topping last year’s death struggle between Destiny Frankenstein and Spaceman Africa.” But these are hopeful times. They’ve collected and...
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Winner, Loser, and Marijuana Pepsi
We wrote in Freakonomics about two brothers named Winner and Loser. Winner became a lifetime criminal; Loser a detective in the NYPD. The story of these two brothers matched the findings of my academic...
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Fun With WolframAlpha
The jury’s still out on whether WolframAlpha.com will turn into a tool that is useful to solve real world computational problems, but it certainly is fun to play with. Here are some cool Easter eggs...
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FREAK Shots: The George Foremans
George Foreman named all five of his boys after himself, but only one has taken up pro boxing. I met the retired boxer and “grillionaire” at his son’s pro debut last Saturday. George III won, but in a...
View ArticleCall Me Bruce
Women in the legal profession with more masculine-sounding names, like Cameron or Kelly, have better odds of becoming judges than women with feminine names, according to a new study by Bentley Coffey...
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Is It Time to Start a Strange Name Hall of Fame?
(Photo: Russ Morris) We should probably start a Strange Name Hall of Fame at some point to chronicle all the weird, wonderful, terrible names that readers have passed along to us since we first wrote...
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Bad News for People With Hard-to-Pronounce Names
(Photo: Fady Aziz) If you have one of those names that people are always struggling to pronounce, we have some bad news for you. A new paper (ungated version here) by Simon M. Laham, Peter Koval, and...
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