FREAK-TV: Name Your Kid Fido If You Want

The latest FREAK-TV video features Levitt discussing the ever-interesting topic of naming your kid. We have had many people write to us since the book came out to say they chose their baby’s name (or, just as often, rejected a name they were considering) based on the data in our book.

What nobody knows (until now) is that one of Levitt’s own kids was named according to these data sets. After we’d worked up the list of “high-end” girls’ names that we thought might tip into the mainstream within 10 years (p. 187 of revised edition), Levitt gave his wife Jeannette that list of names to consider for their forthcoming kid. But he didn’t tell her what the list was; he just said they were some names he liked. Sure enough, she went for one of the names on the list: Sophie.

Sophie is a beautiful name, to be sure, but the big lesson here is more important: don’t ever marry an economist.