Comments on: Nameless Horror

By: spencer

spencer — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 19:05:53 +0000

Yes, technology. I’m 64 years old and this says there are 6 people named spencer england in the us.

But once in my senior year of college in 1964 we were talking about names in an all night bull
session and I made the claim that my name was unusual. One thing led to another and we decided to find another spencer england. It took one phone call to information in New York to find a spencer england.

That was a lot more fun then using this site.

By: stuart

stuart — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:08:55 +0000

For those wondering 33 was right as the site says:

Q: Why isn’t it more accurate?

A: There are a number of possible sources of inaccuracy:

First and foremost, the program is based upon a convenient fiction. Without getting too technical, the program makes the assumption that a person’s first and last names are independent of one another. What this means is it assumes that the probability of a person having a particular first name is the same no matter what last name they have. It isn’t.

By: Jacob Christensen

Jacob Christensen — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:05:45 +0000

-> Engels: As a matter of fact, a search on the WhitePages returns no less than 69 listings of Donald Duck.

I cannot rule out the possibility that one of them uses the surname Rumsfeld as his nom-de-guerre.

Quack!

(In Denmark, the Donald is known as Anders And but according to Danmarks Statistik, no-one of that name lives in Denmark. The closest match is one (1) Anders Andersen).

By: engels

engels — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:05:40 +0000

I think #33 is right, as it would explain results like this:

There are 5,241 people in the U.S. named James James.

By: rea

rea — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 10:08:30 +0000

Sigh. I don’t exist, it says . . .

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 08:39:54 +0000

Engels, I prefer your world to mine.

Back when I was a student, the Berkeley phone book had a listing for B. Traven, on Parker, as I recall.

By: engels

engels — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 05:27:24 +0000

There are 0 people in the U.S. named Donald Rumsfeld.

There are 28 people in the U.S. named Donald Duck.

By: Salted Peanut Lover

Salted Peanut Lover — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:23:17 +0000

Fully 414 parents with surname of Cox named their son Harry. Go figure.

By: d

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:05:06 +0000

I wish this were true.

By: Dan Karreman

Dan Karreman — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:40:55 +0000

Nope, just me in the whole world. But then I have umlauts over the a in my surname. And I personally now all the Kärremans.

By: Kent

Kent — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 18:45:28 +0000

It tells me that there is only one person with my name in the US. I know that this is false, because when I google my name, I can find another one. Apparently he was a high-school football player a few years ago.

By: Dan Goodman

Dan Goodman — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 18:21:13 +0000

For more accuracy, try http://whitepages.com and give the state/province as “all states.” This phone and address lookup site also covers Canada. (And yes, it lists those with unlisted numbers—offering to get the information on them for a small fee.)

By: abb1

abb1 — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:39:36 +0000

Abb1 is unique.

By: neil

neil — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:22:34 +0000

This is a load of crap. It says there are 0 people with my name when I happen to know there are at least 2.

By: clint

clint — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:11:51 +0000

Their methodology must read like the intro to a particularly poorly written exam question in an intro stats class.

Something like: There are 300 million people in US. Based on crappy old estimates there are X people with the first name Max and Y people with the last name Power.

a. Identify the probability someone will have the first name Max
b. Identify the probability someone will have the last name Power
c. Assuming first and last names are independent, calculate the joint probability of having the name “Max Power”
d. Based on the joint probability in©, approximately how many Americans are named “Max Power”?

hmm, maybe I should use this next time I have to teach intro stats.