Boy, Are We Stupid

Levitt and I missed a terrific business opportunity.

If we had even an ounce of entrepreneurship between us, we would have parlayed the Freakonomics chapter on baby names into a baby-name-consulting business.

According to this Reuters report, parents in Britian spend “up to 45 hours” picking out a name for their child, “a combined 30 million hours annually.” Let’s see: at $100 an hour for name consulting, that would be … a lot.

Also from the article: “One in three parents believed the right name can give a child confidence while up to two million thought it could help their child’s career prospects.”

Oops. I guess our business would have failed after all, because we would have told all those parents that, in fact, the name doesn’t matter when it comes to career prospects.

Or we could have just let them go on thinking it does …

(Hat tip: Daniel Lippman)