one of my favorite books this year is ‘When To Rob A Bank’ by the Freakonomics creators Steven  D. Levitt and Stepehen J. Dubner. I love it not only describes moments of our everyday life from an economic perspective, but also – and mostly – because it’s just very entertaining and covers a huge variety of topics. So one of the chapters was about how to name your kids, or rather, how NOT to name them. So far, that’s been one of my favorite chapters, because I truly believe that your personality and your name go hand in hand and that your name kinda predicts what character traits someone will develop. Have you ever had a moment where you were at a party where you didn’t know anyone and before you were introduced to people, you guessed their names? Sometimes, you can just tell if someone’s a Peter or a Mick or a Simone or a Lexy (or even Lexie) just by looking at how they interact with other people (and according to Barney Stinson, how slutty they are).
The name discussed in the Freakonomics article is Wayne, not as a first name, but as a middle name. Beautiful headline, too: The Perils Of Wayne. Apparently, it’s quite a dangerous thing to give your kid the middle name Wayne. As a reader of the Freakonomics blog pointed out, Wayne is the most common middle name among criminals, for example Chicago’s serial killer John Wayne Gacey Jr. If you want to read the original blog post (which I highly recommend bc I can’t stop fangirling), it’s right here.
According to the article, middle names that rhyme with Wayne are equally dangerous. And this immediately made me think of a friend who just became a dad somewhat recently. And guess what, his son’s middle name rhymes with Wayne. Now I don’t think that just because of a name his son will become a serial killer, at least I hope he won’t. But when I read this, I almost wanted to text him and ask if it was too late to change it. Well, I didn’t. It’s not my place and I also highly doubt that a blog post can change any parent’s mind. Why else would there be kids called Apple, Mowgli and Rocket? However, I do hope that this little kid will not follow the name path that’s been laid out for him. And as for all the other kids, I hope they’ll either make a living as creative people or have the patience to go through the all the bureaucrazy necessary in order to change their names.