Meet Bill Gates

Dubner recently posted about criminal names in England.

The American parallel to that list is one maintained by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The Texas list has information about all 396 people currently on death row in that state.

It includes first names, as well as details about their life and crimes in some instances.

The most likely first name to appear is Robert and variations thereof (Bob, Bobby, etc.). 18 of them. William/Willie/Billy/Bill is right behind with 17. Michael is at 14 and Anthony at 8. Steven/Stephen/Steve comes in at 6.

In Freakonomics, we argue that your name doesn’t determine your life outcome. If you need more proof on this point, check out inmate 999376’s profile.

[Addendum from Dubner: for those of you interested in keeping track of Federal prisoners and when they are due to be released, here’s a very handy prison locator, courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.]