How did a nation of immigrants come to hate immigration? We start at the beginning, sort through the evidence, and explain why your grandfather was lying about Ellis Island. (Part…
…or Leszczynska, for example): “Studies 1–3 demonstrate that people form more positive impressions of easy-to-pronounce names than of difficult-to-pronounce names.” While the first three studies focused on surnames, a fifth…
…when she later gave birth.) We found that names didn’t seem to matter. Black women with “distinctively black” names had nearly identical — maybe even a little better — outcomes…
He’s one of the world’s leading competitors, having won four U.S. memory tournaments and holding the record for most names memorized in 15 minutes (235!). But Nelson Dellis claims he…
…fastest-rising baby names in 2012, according to the Social Security Administration’s annual list of popular baby names. … The boy’s mother, Jaleesa Martin, of Newport, said she will appeal. She…
Cat Bohannon’s new book puts female anatomy at the center of human evolution. She tells Steve why it takes us so long to give birth, what breast milk is really…
Is sobbing a survival tactic? What happened when Angela wept in front of her boss? And what do sauerkraut and sadness have in common?…
In a special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt talks to Cat Bohannon about her new book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human…
Does instinct trump expertise? Can playing poker improve your intuition? And why did Angela jump off of a moving trolley car?…
Every 12 years, there’s a spike in births among certain communities across the globe, including the U.S. Why? Because the Year of the Dragon, according to Chinese folk belief, confers…
Even American parents have a strong “son preference” — which means that a newborn daughter can be bad news for a marriage.
There’s someone hiring on Craig’s List in Minneapolis: Freakonomics for Baby Names Reply to: jillyouse@yahoo.com Date: 2006-07-11, 9:32PM CDT We are writing a book on baby names and parent occupation….
…wholly legitimate (93 percent). Yes! also indulges the Freakonomics fascination with the impact of baby names. Chapter 30 argues that your name might impact your vocation. Chapter 30 quotes a…
…so any name for which that ratio is equal to zero gets dropped from the analysis. The kinds of names that will have a ratio of zero are uncommon names…
…they change their names to something more common. Even more interesting is this bit about Chinese surnames: By some estimates, 100 surnames cover 85 percent of China’s citizens. Laobaixing, or…
Why have fertility rates dropped so dramatically? Do fathers or mothers get more happiness from parenting? And how does birth order affect a child’s future?…
In our collective zeal to reform schools and close the achievement gap, we may have lost sight of where most learning really happens — at home.
That’s the question asked by an Australian reader named Peter Gartlan: In 2004, the Australian government introduced a $4,000 lump sum payment for having a baby, known as the Baby…
Scottish Opera will soon launch Baby O, a series of concerts for infants. The concerts “will feature no lyrics, narrative or plot. Instead, classically trained singers will create baby-friendly noises,…
Also: why don’t you need a license to become a parent?…
Most Americans agree that racial discrimination has been, and remains, a big problem. But that is where the agreement ends.
The gist: in our collective zeal to reform schools and close the achievement gap, we may have lost sight of where most learning really happens — at home.
We’ve heard reports here and there of expectant parents plucking a name or two from the various lists of first names in Freakonomics, but these folks are taking it pretty…
…from 8 instances in 1999 to 4,457 last year. “Of the last couple of generations, Nevaeh is certainly the most remarkable phenomenon in baby names,” said Cleveland Kent Evans, president…
Professor invents book-writing machine. Are toddlers masters of data-mining? (Earlier) Study finds teenage fathers at greater risk of producing unhealthy babies. “Britney” plummets from list of most popular baby names….
…Levy. They used a common Freakonomics topic — baby names — to study how far ideas have spread since the advent of the Internet. They found that from the 1970’s…
Send in your nominees for the Blogging Scholarship Award. Venezuelan government considers regulating baby names. Sure, Michigan lost, but in revenue terms, they still won. (Earlier) Do teacher credentials affect…
Divorce is bad for the environment. Survey shows that doctors fail to report each others’ errors. (Earlier) A complete compilation of science fiction baby names. (Earlier) Researchers study zebra social…
